这个故事的寓意是什么？对小女孩来说，答案显而易见：远离狼。对历史学家而言，它似乎揭示了早期现代农民的心理世界。但究竟是什么呢？我们该如何解读这样的文本？精神分析或许是一个途径。精神分析学家们对民间故事进行了深入研究，从中挖掘出隐藏的象征意义、无意识的主题和心理机制。例如，不妨看看两位最著名的精神分析学家埃里希·弗洛姆和布鲁诺·贝特尔海姆对《小红帽》的解读。

What is the moral of this story? For little girls, clearly: stay away from wolves. For historians, it seems to be saying something about the mental world of the early modern peasantry. But what? How can one begin to interpret such a text? One way leads through psychoanalysis. The analysts have given folktales a thorough going-over, picking out hidden symbols, unconscious motifs, and psychic mechanisms. Consider, for example, the exegesis of “Little Red Riding Hood” by two of the best known psychoanalysts, Erich Fromm and Bruno Bettelheim.

弗洛姆将这个故事解读为原始社会集体无意识的谜题，并通过解读其“象征语言”轻松解开了谜题。他解释说，故事讲述的是一个青少年面对成人性意识的经历。其隐藏的含义通过象征手法展现出来——但他从自己的文本版本中解读出的象征意义，是基于十七、十八世纪农民所知的版本中并不存在的细节。因此，他着重强调（并不存在）的小红帽象征月经，女孩携带的（并不存在）瓶子象征贞洁：由此产生了母亲（并不存在）的告诫，告诫她不要偏离小路，进入荒野，以免瓶子被她打碎。狼则象征着令人着迷的男性。而猎人（实际上并不存在）救出女孩和她祖母后，放在狼肚子里的两块（并不存在的）石头，象征着不育，是对触犯性禁忌的惩罚。因此，精神分析学家以一种在原版民间故事中并不存在的、对细节的异常敏锐，将我们带入了一个从未存在过的精神世界，至少在精神分析出现之前是如此^。

Fromm interpreted the tale as a riddle about the collective unconscious in primitive society, and he solved it “without difficulty” by decoding its “symbolic language.” The story concerns an adolescent’s confrontation with adult sexuality, he explained. Its hidden meaning shows through its symbolism—but the symbols he saw in his version of the text were based on details that did not exist in the versions known to peasants in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Thus he makes a great deal of the (nonexistent) red riding hood as a symbol of menstruation and of the (nonexistent) bottle carried by the girl as a symbol of virginity: hence the mother’s (nonexistent) admonition not to stray from the path into wild terrain where she might break it. The wolf is the ravishing male. And the two (nonexistent) stones that are placed in the wolf’s belly after the (nonexistent) hunter extricates the girl and her grandmother, stand for sterility, the punishment for breaking a sexual taboo. So, with an uncanny sensitivity to detail that did not occur in the original folktale, the psychoanalyst takes us into a mental universe that never existed, at least not before the advent of psychoanalysis.²

怎么会有人把文本解读得如此错误？问题不在于职业教条主义——因为精神分析学家在运用符号时不必比诗人更加僵化——而在于对民间故事历史维度的视而不见。

How could anyone get a text so wrong? The difficulty does not derive from professional dogmatism—for psychoanalysts need not be more rigid than poets in their manipulation of symbols—but rather from blindness to the historical dimension of folktales.

弗洛姆并未提及他的资料来源，但显然他取材于格林兄弟的作品。格林兄弟从他们在卡塞尔的邻居兼好友珍妮特·哈森普弗卢格那里得到了这个故事，以及《穿靴子的猫》、《蓝胡子》和其他一些故事；而珍妮特又是从她的母亲那里学来的，她的母亲来自一个法国胡格诺派家庭。胡格诺派教徒在逃离路易十四的迫害时，将他们自己的故事集带到了德国。但他们并非直接从民间口头传统中汲取灵感。他们是在十七世纪末巴黎时尚圈童话风靡一时之际，从夏尔·佩罗、玛丽·凯瑟琳·德·奥努瓦等人的著作中读到这些故事的。佩罗作为这一体裁的大师，确实从普通民众的口头传统中汲取素材（他的主要来源很可能是他儿子的保姆）。但他对故事进行了润色，使其更符合沙龙里那些见多识广的淑女、贵妇和朝臣的口味。 他为这些人创作了第一部印刷版的《鹅妈妈童谣》（Contes de ma mère l'oye， 1697年）。因此，经由哈森普弗鲁格夫妇传到格林兄弟手中的这些故事，既不完全是德国的，也不完全代表民间传统。事实上，格林兄弟意识到了这些故事的文学化和法式化特征，因此将它们从《儿童与家庭童话集》（Kinder-und Hausmärchen）第二版中删除——除了《小红帽》。显然，《小红帽》之所以保留在故事集中，是因为珍妮特·哈森普弗鲁格为它嫁接了一个源自《狼与小羊》（根据安蒂·阿恩和斯蒂斯·汤普森制定的标准分类方案，故事类型为123）的幸福结局，而《狼与小羊》在德国是最受欢迎的故事之一。就这样，《小红帽》悄然融入了德国文学传统，后来又融入了英国文学传统，而它的法国渊源却无人察觉。从法国农民到佩罗的育儿室，再到印刷出版，跨越莱茵河，她的故事又回到了口头传统，但这一次是作为胡格诺派流散群体的一部分，最终再次以书籍形式出版，但这一次是条顿森林的产物，而不是法国旧制度时期乡村炉灶的产物，她的性格发生了巨大的变化^。3

Fromm did not bother to mention his source, but apparently he took his text from the brothers Grimm. The Grimms got it, along with “Puss ’n Boots,” “Bluebeard,” and a few other stories, from Jeannette Hassenpflug, a neighbor and close friend of theirs in Cassel; and she learned it from her mother, who came from a French Huguenot family. The Huguenots brought their own repertory of tales into Germany when they fled from the persecution of Louis XIV. But they did not draw them directly from popular oral tradition. They read them in books written by Charles Perrault, Marie Cathérine d‘Aulnoy, and others during the vogue for fairy tales in fashionable Parisian circles at the end of the seventeenth century. Perrault, the master of the genre, did indeed take his material from the oral tradition of the common people (his principal source probably was his son’s nurse). But he touched it up so that it would suit the taste of the salon sophisticates, précieuses, and courtiers to whom he directed the first printed version of Mother Goose, his Contes de ma mère l’oye of 1697. Thus the tales that reached the Grimms through the Hassenpflugs were neither very German nor very representative of folk tradition. Indeed, the Grimms recognized their literary and Frenchified character and therefore eliminated them from the second edition of the Kinder-und Hausmärchen—all but “Little Red Riding Hood.” It remained in the collection, evidently, because Jeannette Hassenpflug had grafted on to it a happy ending derived from “The Wolf and the Kids” (tale type 123 according to the standard classification scheme developed by Antti Aarne and Stith Thompson), which was one of the most popular in Germany. So Little Red Riding Hood slipped into the German and later the English literary tradition with her French origins undetected. She changed character considerably as she passed from the French peasantry to Perrault’s nursery, into print, across the Rhine, back into an oral tradition but this time as part of the Huguenot diaspora, and back into book form but now as a product of the Teutonic forest rather than the village hearths of the Old Regime in France.³

弗洛姆和其他许多精神分析诠释者并不在意文本的改编——事实上，他们对此一无所知——因为他们得到了自己想要的故事。故事以青春期性行为（红帽少女，这在法国口头传统中并不存在）开篇，以自我（获救少女，在法国故事中她通常会被吃掉）战胜本我（狼，在传统版本中它从未被杀死）而告终。结局圆满，一切都好。

Fromm and a host of other psychoanalytical exegetes did not worry about the transformations of the text—indeed, they did not know about them—because they got the tale they wanted. It begins with pubertal sex (the red hood, which does not exist in the French oral tradition) and ends with the triumph of the ego (the rescued girl, who is usually eaten in the French tales) over the id (the wolf, who is never killed in the traditional versions). All’s well that ends well.

对于布鲁诺·贝特尔海姆（Bruno Bettelheim）来说，故事的结局尤为重要。他是众多研究《小红帽》的精神分析学家之一。在他看来，这个故事，以及所有此类故事的关键，在于其结局所传递的积极信息。他认为，民间故事通过快乐的结局，让孩子们得以直面潜意识中的欲望和恐惧，最终毫发无损地走出困境，本我得到抑制，自我获得胜利。在贝特尔海姆的解读中，本我是《小红帽》中的反派。它是享乐原则的体现，当女孩的年龄超过了口唇期（如《汉塞尔与格蕾特》所代表的阶段），又未达到成年性行为的年龄时，它便会将女孩引入歧途。本我同时也是狼，狼又是父亲，又是猎人，同时也是自我，某种程度上，它还是超我。通过引导狼去见她的祖母，小红帽以俄狄浦斯情结的方式除掉了她的母亲，因为在灵魂的道德经济中，母亲也可以是祖母，而且森林两边的房子实际上是同一栋房子，就像《汉塞尔与格蕾特》中那样，它们也是母亲的身体。这种巧妙的象征手法让小红帽有机会与她的父亲——狼——同床共枕，从而释放了她的俄狄浦斯情结幻想。最终她得以幸存，因为当她的父亲以自我-超我-猎手的形象再次出现，并将她从狼-本我的身体中取出时，她便在更高的存在层面上重生，从此大家过上了幸福的生活^。4

The ending is particularly important for Bruno Bettelheim, the latest in the line of psychoanalysts who have had a go at “Little Red Riding Hood.” For him, the key to the story, and to all such stories, is the affirmative message of its denouement. By ending happily, he maintains, folktales permit children to confront their unconscious desires and fears and to emerge unscathed, id subdued and ego triumphant. The id is the villain of “Little Red Riding Hood” in Bettelheim’s version. It is the pleasure principle, which leads the girl astray when she is too old for oral fixation (the stage represented by “Hansel and Gretel”) and too young for adult sex. The id is also the wolf, who is also the father, who is also the hunter, who is also the ego and, somehow, the superego as well. By directing the wolf to her grandmother, Little Red Riding Hood manages in oedipal fashion to do away with her mother, because mothers can also be grandmothers in the moral economy of the soul and the houses on either side of the woods are actually the same house, as in “Hansel and Gretel,” where they are also the mother’s body. This adroit mixing of symbols gives Little Red Riding Hood an opportunity to get into bed with her father, the wolf, thereby giving vent to her oedipal fantasies. She survives in the end because she is reborn on a higher level of existence when her father reappears as ego-superego-hunter and cuts her out of the belly of her father as wolf-id, so that everyone lives happily ever after.⁴

贝特尔海姆对象征意义的宽容解读，使得他对这个故事的诠释比弗洛姆的“秘密代码”概念少了几分机械性，但他的解读也同样基于一些未经质疑的文本假设。尽管他引用了足够多的格林和佩罗的评论家，表明他对民俗学作为一门学科有一定的了解，但贝特尔海姆在解读《小红帽》和其他故事时，却仿佛它们没有历史。他对待这些故事，可以说是将它们扁平化处理，如同对待躺在沙发上的病人，置于一种永恒的当代语境中。他既不质疑它们的起源，也不关心它们在其他语境中可能具有的其他含义，因为他自认为了解灵魂的运作方式，以及它一直以来的运作方式。然而，事实上，民间故事是历史文献。它们历经数个世纪的演变，在不同的文化传统中呈现出不同的发展轨迹。它们远非表达人类内心永恒不变的运作方式，反而暗示着心智本身也在不断变化。如果我们想象一下用原始农民版本的“小红帽”故事哄自己的孩子入睡，就能体会到我们当今的精神世界与祖先精神世界之间的巨大差异。或许，这个故事的寓意应该是：要提防精神分析学家——并且谨慎使用资料来源。看来我们又回到了历史主义的老路^。5

Bettelheim’s generous view of symbolism makes for a less mechanistic interpretation of the tale than does Fromm’s notion of a secret code, but it, too, proceeds from some unquestioned assumptions about the text. Although he cites enough commentators on Grimm and Perrault to indicate some awareness of folklore as an academic discipline, Bettelheim reads “Little Red Riding Hood” and the other tales as if they had no history. He treats them, so to speak, flattened out, like patients on a couch, in a timeless contemporaneity. He does not question their origins or worry over other meanings that they might have had in other contexts because he knows how the soul works and how it has always worked. In fact, however, folktales are historical documents. They have evolved over many centuries and have taken different turns in different cultural traditions. Far from expressing the unchanging operations of man’s inner being, they suggest that mentalités themselves have changed. We can appreciate the distance between our mental world and that of our ancestors if we imagine lulling a child of our own to sleep with the primitive peasant version of “Little Red Riding Hood.” Perhaps, then, the moral of the story should be: beware of psychoanalysts—and be careful in your use of sources. We seem to be back at historicism.⁵

然而，事实并非如此，《小红帽》中那种令人毛骨悚然的非理性，在启蒙时代显得格格不入。实际上，农民们的版本在暴力和性方面甚至超过了精神分析学家的版本。（弗洛姆和贝特尔海姆效仿格林兄弟和佩罗，没有提及祖母被吃掉以及女孩被吞噬前的脱衣舞。）显然，农民们无需任何秘密代码就能谈论禁忌。

Not quite, however, for “Little Red Riding Hood” has a terrifying irrationality that seems out of place in the Age of Reason. In fact, the peasants’ version outdoes the psychoanalysts’ in violence and sex. (Following the Grimms and Perrault, Fromm and Bettelheim do not mention the cannibalizing of grandmother and the strip-tease prelude to the devouring of the girl.) Evidently the peasants did not need a secret code to talk about taboos.

法国农家童谣《鹅妈妈童谣》中的其他故事也同样带有噩梦般的色彩。例如，在早期版本的《睡美人》（故事类型410）中，已婚的王子强暴了公主，公主为他生了好几个孩子，却始终没有醒来。孩子们最终在哺乳时咬了公主，打破了魔咒，故事由此展开了第二个主题：王子的岳母，一个女妖，企图吃掉他私生子。最初的《蓝胡子》（故事类型312）讲述的是一个新娘无法抗拒诱惑，打开了丈夫家中一扇禁忌之门的故事。她的丈夫是个古怪的男人，已经娶过六位妻子。新娘走进一间黑暗的房间，发现前妻们的尸体挂在墙上。她惊恐万分，手中的禁忌钥匙滑落到地上的血泊中。她无法擦干净血迹；蓝胡子检查钥匙时发现了她的不听话。他磨利着刀，准备把她变成他的第七个受害者，她则躲进卧室，穿上婚纱。但她拖延了梳妆打扮的时间，直到她的兄弟们接到她宠物鸽子的警告后策马赶来救她。在灰姑娘故事集的一个早期版本（故事类型510B）中，女主人公为了阻止父亲强迫她嫁给他，成为了一名家仆。在另一个版本中，恶毒的继母试图把她推进烤箱，却误烧死了其中一个恶毒的继姐。在法国农民的童话故事《汉塞尔与格蕾特》（故事类型327）中，主人公设计让一个食人魔割断了他自己孩子的喉咙。在《美女与怪物》（故事类型433）中，一位丈夫在婚床上吃掉了一连串的新娘。这个故事是数百个从未被收录进鹅妈妈童谣印刷版的故事之一。在更令人作呕的故事《三条狗》（故事类型315）中，一位妹妹在哥哥的婚床床垫里藏了尖刺，杀死了他。而最令人发指的故事是《我母亲杀了我，我父亲吃了我》（故事类型720），一位母亲将儿子剁碎做成里昂式砂锅菜，然后由女儿端给父亲吃。诸如此类的故事不胜枚举，从强奸和鸡奸到乱伦和食人。十八世纪法国的讲故事者们并没有用象征手法来掩盖他们的信息，而是描绘了一个赤裸裸的残酷世界。

The other stories in the French peasant Mother Goose have the same nightmare quality. In one early version of “Sleeping Beauty” (tale type 410), for example, Prince Charming, who is already married, ravishes the princess, and she bears him several children, without waking up. The infants finally break the spell by biting her while nursing, and the tale then takes up its second theme: the attempts of the prince’s mother-in-law, an ogress, to eat his illicit offspring. The original “Bluebeard” (tale type 312) is the story of a bride who cannot resist the temptation to open a forbidden door in the house of her husband, a strange man who has already gone through six wives. She enters a dark room and discovers the corpses of the previous wives, hanging on the wall. Horrified, she lets the forbidden key drop from her hand into a pool of blood on the floor. She cannot wipe it clean; so Bluebeard discovers her disobedience, when he inspects the keys. As he sharpens his knife in preparation for making her his seventh victim, she withdraws to her bedroom and puts on her wedding costume. But she delays her toilette long enough to be saved by her brothers, who gallop to the rescue after receiving a warning from her pet dove. In one early tale from the Cinderella cycle (tale type 510B), the heroine becomes a domestic servant in order to prevent her father from forcing her to marry him. In another, the wicked stepmother tries to push her in an oven but incinerates one of the mean stepsisters by mistake. In the French peasant’s “Hansel and Gretel” (tale type 327), the hero tricks an ogre into slitting the throats of his own children. A husband eats a succession of brides in the wedding bed in “La Belle et le monstre” (tale type 433), one of the hundreds of tales that never made it into the printed versions of Mother Goose. In a nastier tale, “Les Trois Chiens” (tale type 315), a sister kills her brother by hiding spikes in the mattress of his wedding bed. In the nastiest of all, “Ma mere m‘a tué, mon père m’a mangé” (tale type 720), a mother chops her son up into a Lyonnais-style casserole, which her daughter serves to the father. And so it goes, from rape and sodomy to incest and cannibalism. Far from veiling their message with symbols, the storytellers of eighteenth-century France portrayed a world of raw and naked brutality.

历史学家如何理解这个世界？要想在早期鹅妈妈童谣的暗流中保持立足点，一种方法是坚守两门学科：人类学和民俗学。人类学家在讨论理论时，对各自学科的基本原理存在分歧。但当他们深入丛林时，他们运用理解口头传统的技巧，这些技巧若运用得当，也可以应用于西方民俗学。除了少数结构主义者之外，他们将故事与讲故事的艺术以及故事发生的语境联系起来。他们探寻讲述者如何根据听众调整传承下来的主题，从而使特定时间和地点的特征透过普遍的主题显露出来。他们并不期望发现直接的社会评论或形而上学的寓言，而是关注一种话语的语调或文化风格，这种风格传达了一种特定的精神气质和世界观。^6.法国人所谓的“科学”民俗学（美国专家通常区分民俗学和“伪民俗学”），是指根据安蒂·阿恩和斯蒂斯·汤普森制定的标准化故事类型模式，对故事进行汇编和比较。它并非一定排除弗拉基米尔·普罗普等形式主义分析，而是强调严谨的文献记录——包括故事的讲述场合、讲述者的背景以及受书面资料影响的程度。7 ^.

How can the historian make sense of this world? One way for him to keep his footing in the psychic undertow of early Mother Goose is to hold fast to two disciplines: anthropology and folklore. When they discuss theory, anthropologists disagree about the fundamentals of their science. But when they go into the bush, they use techniques for understanding oral traditions that can, with discretion, be applied to Western folklore. Except for some structuralists, they relate tales to the art of tale telling and to the context in which it takes place. They look for the way a raconteur adapts an inherited theme to his audience so that the specificity of time and place shows through the universality of the topos. They do not expect to find direct social comment or metaphysical allegories so much as a tone of discourse or a cultural style, which communicates a particular ethos and world view.⁶ “Scientific” folklore, as the French call it (American specialists often distinguish between folklore and “fakelore”), involves the compilation and comparison of tales according to the standardized schemata of tale types developed by Antti Aarne and Stith Thompson. It does not necessarily exclude formalistic analysis such as that of Vladimir Propp, but it stresses rigorous documentation—the occasion of the telling, the background of the teller, and the degree of contamination from written sources.⁷

法国民俗学家记录了大约一万个故事，涵盖多种方言，遍及法国各地以及法语区。例如，1945年，阿丽亚娜·德·费利斯（Ariane de Félice）在为法国民间艺术与传统博物馆（Musée des arts et traditions populaires）前往贝里（Berry）考察时，记录了一位名叫欧弗拉西·皮雄（Euphrasie Pichon）的农妇讲述的《小拇指》（Le Petit Poucet，又译《拇指汤姆》或《拇指怪》，故事类型327）。皮雄于1862年出生于安德尔省埃居宗村。1879年，让·德鲁耶（Jean Drouillet）听母亲欧热妮（Eugénie）讲述这个故事时，也记录了另一个版本。欧热妮是从她的母亲奥克塔维·里费（Octavie Riffet）那里学来的，故事发生在谢尔省泰莱村。这两个版本几乎完全相同，与夏尔·佩罗于1697年出版的该故事的首个印刷版本没有任何关联。它们以及其他八十个“小拇指”（Petits Poucets）故事，被民俗学家逐一收集和比较，它们都属于一种口头传统，这种传统在19世纪末之前几乎没有受到印刷文化的影响。法国民间故事集中的大部分故事都是在1870年至1914年间记录的，正值“法国民间故事研究的黄金时代”，它们是由农民口述的，这些农民在识字尚未普及到农村之前，从小就耳熟能详这些故事。因此，1874年，一位出生于1794年的不识字的农妇南内特·勒韦斯克口述了一个可以追溯到18世纪的《小红帽》版本； 1865年，出生于1803年的家仆路易·格罗洛口述了他在帝国时期首次听到的《猪》（故事类型621）。如同所有讲故事的人一样，这些农民故事讲述者会根据自身所处的环境调整故事的背景；但他们保留了故事的主要元素，并运用重复、押韵和其他记忆技巧。尽管“表演”这一对当代民俗研究至关重要的要素在古籍中并未体现，但民俗学家认为，第三共和国时期的记录足以让他们重构两个世纪前口头传统的大致轮廓^。

French folklorists have recorded about ten thousand tales, in many different dialects and in every corner of France and of French-speaking territories. For example, while on an expedition in Berry for the Musée des arts et traditions populaires in 1945, Ariane de Félice recorded a version of “Le Petit Poucet” (“Tom Thumb” or “Thumbling,” tale type 327) by a peasant woman, Euphrasie Pichon, who had been born in 1862 in the village of Eguzon (Indre). In 1879 Jean Drouillet wrote down another version as he listened to his mother Eugénie, who had learned it from her mother, Octavie Riffet, in the village of Teillay (Cher). The two versions are nearly identical and owe nothing to the first printed account of the tale, which Charles Perrault published in 1697. They and eighty other “Petits Poucets,” which folklorists have compiled and compared, motif by motif, belong to an oral tradition that survived with remarkably little contamination from print culture until late in the nineteenth century. Most of the tales in the French repertory were recorded between 1870 and 1914 during “the Golden Age of folktale research in France,” and they were recounted by peasants who had learned them as children, long before literacy had spread throughout the countryside. Thus in 1874 Nannette Levesque, an illiterate peasant woman born in 1794, dictated a version of “Little Red Riding Hood” that went back to the eighteenth century; and in 1865 Louis Grolleau, a domestic servant born in 1803, dictated a rendition of “Le Pou” (tale type 621) that he had first heard under the Empire. Like all tellers of tales, the peasant raconteurs adjusted the setting of their stories to their own milieux; but they kept the main elements intact, using repetitions, rhymes, and other mnemonic devices. Although the “performance” element, which is central to the study of contemporary folklore, does not show through the old texts, folklorists argue that the recordings of the Third Republic provide enough evidence for them to reconstruct the rough outlines of an oral tradition that existed two centuries ago.⁸

这种说法或许听起来有些夸张，但比较研究揭示了同一故事的不同版本之间存在着惊人的相似之处，即便这些版本录制于偏远村庄，彼此相距甚远，书籍也鲜少流通。例如，保罗·德拉鲁在对《小红帽》的研究中，比较了在奥依语区广袤地带录制的35个版本。其中20个版本与上文引用的原始版本“Conte de la mere grand”完全一致，仅有少数细节不同（有时女孩被吃掉，有时她用计逃脱）。两个版本遵循佩罗的原著（第一个提到红帽子的版本）。其余版本则融合了口头和书面叙述，其特色鲜明，如同法式沙拉酱中的大蒜和芥末一样^。9

That claim may seem extravagant, but comparative studies have revealed striking similarities in different recordings of the same tale, even though they were made in remote villages, far removed from one another and from the circulation of books. In a study of “Little Red Riding Hood,” for example, Paul Delarue compared thirty-five versions recorded throughout a vast zone of the langue d’oïl. Twenty versions correspond exactly to the primitive “Conte de la mere grand” quoted above, except for a few details (sometimes the girl is eaten, sometimes she escapes by a ruse). Two versions follow Perrault’s tale (the first to mention the red hood). And the rest contain a mixture of the oral and written accounts, whose elements stand out as distinctly as the garlic and mustard in a French salad dressing.⁹

书面证据证明，这些故事早在“民间传说”（folklore，一个十九世纪的新词）出现之前就已存在。^中世纪 的传教士们利用口头传统来阐明道德论点。他们从十二世纪到十五世纪的布道词被记录在“范例”（Exempla）集中，其中引用的故事与十九世纪民俗学家在农舍里记录的故事相同。尽管骑士传奇、英雄史诗和寓言故事的起源仍然扑朔迷离，但似乎很多中世纪文学都借鉴了民间口头传统，而不是相反。“睡美人”出现在十四世纪的一部亚瑟王传奇中，“灰姑娘”则出现在诺埃尔·杜·费尔（Noel du Fail）1547年出版的《乡村故事集》（Propos rustiques ）中，这本书追溯了这些故事的起源，并展示了它们是如何流传下来的。杜费尔首次记录了法国一项重要的传统—— 守夜（veillée）。守夜是一种晚间围坐在炉火旁的聚会，男人们一边修理工具，女人们一边缝纫，同时聆听着故事。这些故事在三百年后被民俗学家记录下来，而它们本身却已流传数百年。 ¹¹无论这些故事的目的是为了娱乐成年人，还是为了吓唬孩子（例如像《小红帽》这样的警世故事），它们都属于民间文化的宝库，几个世纪以来，农民们一直珍藏着这些文化遗产，而它们的流失却微乎其微。

Written evidence proves that the tales existed long before anyone conceived of “folklore,” a nineteenth-century neologism.¹⁰ Medieval preachers drew on the oral tradition in order to illustrate moral arguments. Their sermons, transcribed in collections of “Exempla” from the twelfth to the fifteenth century, refer to the same stories as those taken down in peasant cottages by folklorists in the nineteenth century. Despite the obscurity surrounding the origins of chivalric romances, chansons de geste, and fabliaux, it seems that a good deal of medieval literature drew on popular oral tradition, rather than vice versa. “Sleeping Beauty” appeared in an Arthurian romance of the fourteenth century, and “Cinderella” surfaced in Noel du Fail’s Propos rustiques of 1547, a book that traced the tales to peasant lore and that showed how they were transmitted; for du Fail wrote the first account of an important French institution, the veillée, an evening fireside gathering, where men repaired tools and women sewed while listening to stories that would be recorded by folklorists three hundred years later and that were already centuries old.¹¹ Whether they were meant to amuse adults or to frighten children, as in the case of cautionary tales like “Little Red Riding Hood,” the stories belonged to a fund of popular culture, which peasants hoarded over the centuries with remarkably little loss.

因此，十九世纪末二十世纪初收集的大量民间故事集为我们提供了一个难得的机会，让我们得以接触那些消失在历史长河中、不留任何痕迹的文盲大众。如果仅仅因为民间故事无法像其他历史文献那样精确地确定年代和地点就将其拒之门外，那就等于放弃了进入旧制度下农民精神世界的少数几个入口之一。然而，试图深入探索那个世界，就如同当年让·德·洛尔（故事类型301）试图从冥界救出三位西班牙公主，或是小帕尔（故事类型328）出发去夺取食人魔的宝藏时所遇到的种种艰巨挑战一样令人望而生畏。

The great collections of folktales made in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries therefore provide a rare opportunity to make contact with the illiterate masses who have disappeared into the past without leaving a trace. To reject folktales because they cannot be dated and situated with precision like other historical documents is to turn one’s back on one of the few points of entry into the mental world of peasants under the Old Regime. But to attempt to penetrate that world is to face a set of obstacles as daunting as those confronted by Jean de l’Ours (tale type 301) when he tried to rescue the three Spanish princesses from the underworld or by little Parle (tale type 328) when he set out to capture the ogre’s treasure.

最大的障碍在于无法聆听故事讲述者的讲述。无论记录的版本多么准确，都无法传达十八世纪故事鲜活生动的那些效果：戏剧性的停顿、狡黠的眼神、用手势来营造场景——白雪公主在纺车旁，灰姑娘在给继姐除虱——以及用声音来强调动作——敲门声（通常是敲击听众的额头）、棍棒敲击声或放屁声。所有这些手法都塑造了故事的意义，而历史学家却无从知晓。他无法确定自己手中那本平淡无奇的文字是否准确地记录了十八世纪的表演。他甚至无法确定这些文字是否与一个世纪前那些未被记录的版本相符。尽管他可能找到大量证据来证明这个故事本身确实存在，但他无法消除自己的怀疑，即在它传到第三共和国的民俗学家那里之前，它可能已经发生了很大的变化。

The greatest obstacle is the impossibility of listening in on the story tellers. No matter how accurate they may be, the recorded versions of the tales cannot convey the effects that must have brought the stories to life in the eighteenth century: the dramatic pauses, the sly glances, the use of gestures to set scenes—a Snow White at a spinning wheel, a Cinderella delousing a stepsister—and the use of sounds to punctuate actions—a knock on the door (often done by rapping on a listener’s forehead) or a cudgeling or a fart. All of those devices shaped the meaning of the tales, and all of them elude the historian. He cannot be sure that the limp and lifeless text that he holds between the covers of a book provides an accurate account of the performance that took place in the eighteenth century. He cannot even be certain that the text corresponds to the unrecorded versions that existed a century earlier. Although he may turn up plenty of evidence to prove that the tale itself existed, he cannot quiet his suspicions that it could have changed a great deal before it reached the folklorists of the Third Republic.

鉴于这些不确定性，仅凭单一故事的单一版本来构建解读似乎并不明智，而将象征性分析建立在诸如小红帽和猎人等细节之上则更为危险，因为这些细节在民间版本中可能并不存在。然而，这些版本的记录数量众多——35个《小红帽》版本、90个《拇指汤姆》版本、105个《灰姑娘》版本——足以让我们了解故事在口头传统中的大致轮廓。我们可以从结构层面进行研究，注意叙事的框架和主题的组合方式，而不是专注于细枝末节。然后，我们可以将其与其他故事进行比较。最后，通过研究所有法国民间故事，我们可以辨别出其普遍特征、贯穿始终的主题以及风格和语调的共通之处。 ¹²

Given those uncertainties, it seems unwise to build an interpretation on a single version of a single tale, and more hazardous still to base symbolic analysis on details—riding hoods and hunters—that may not have occurred in the peasant versions. But there are enough recordings of those versions—35 “Little Red Riding Hoods,” 90 “Tom Thumbs,” 105 “Cinderellas”—for one to picture the general outline of a tale as it existed in the oral tradition. One can study it on the level of structure, noting the way the narrative is framed and the motifs are combined, instead of concentrating on fine points of detail. Then one can compare it with other stories. And finally, by working through the entire body of French folktales, one can distinguish general characteristics, over-arching themes, and pervasive elements of style and tone.¹²

人们还可以从口头文学研究专家那里寻求帮助和慰藉。米尔曼·帕里和阿尔伯特·洛德的研究表明，像《伊利亚特》这样的民间史诗，在南斯拉夫不识字的农民中，是如何被吟游诗人忠实地代代相传的。这些“故事吟唱者”并不具备人们有时认为“原始”民族拥有的那种惊人的记忆力。事实上，他们几乎不背诵任何东西。相反，他们会根据听众的反应，即兴地将固定的短语、公式和叙事片段组合起来。同一位歌手演唱同一部史诗的录音表明，每一次表演都是独一无二的。然而，1950年的录音与1934年的录音在本质上并无二致。在每一种情况下，歌手都仿佛沿着一条熟悉的道路行走。他或许会在此处岔路抄近路，或在此处驻足欣赏全景，但他始终身处熟悉的领域——事实上，如此熟悉，以至于他会说自己重复了之前走过的每一步。他对重复的理解与识字之人截然不同，因为他没有词语、诗行和韵律的概念。对他而言，文本并非像对纸质书读者那样僵化固定。他边走边创作，在旧主题中开辟新的路径。他甚至可以运用源自印刷资料的素材，因为史诗整体远大于各部分之和，细节上的改动几乎不会影响其整体结构^。13

One can also seek aid and comfort from specialists in the study of oral literature. Milman Parry and Albert Lord have shown how folk epics as long as The Iliad are passed on faithfully from bard to bard among the illiterate peasants of Yugoslavia. These “singers of tales” do not possess the fabulous powers of memorization sometimes attributed to “primitive” peoples. They do not memorize very much at all. Instead, they combine stock phrases, formulas, and narrative segments in patterns improvised according to the response of their audience. Recordings of the same epic by the same singer demonstrate that each performance is unique. Yet recordings made in 1950 do not differ in essentials from those made in 1934. In each case, the singer proceeds as if he were walking down a well-known path. He may branch off here to take a shortcut or pause there to enjoy a panorama, but he always remains on familiar ground—so familiar, in fact, that he will say that he repeated every step exactly as he has done before. He does not conceive of repetition in the same way as a literate person, for he has no notion of words, lines, and verses. Texts are not rigidly fixed for him as they are for readers of the printed page. He creates his text as he goes, picking new routes through old themes. He can even work in material derived from printed sources, for the epic as a whole is so much greater than the sum of its parts that modifications of detail barely disturb the general configuration.¹³

洛德的研究证实了弗拉基米尔·普罗普通过另一种分析方法得出的结论，即在俄罗斯民间故事中，细节的变化如何服从于稳定的结构。 ¹⁴在波利尼西亚、非洲以及北美和南美的文盲民族中进行实地考察的研究人员也发现，口头传统具有巨大的生命力。关于口头资料是否能够提供对过去事件的可靠描述，人们的意见不一。罗伯特·洛伊在20世纪初收集了克罗族印第安人的叙事，他持极端怀疑的态度：“在任何情况下，我都不能赋予口头传统任何历史价值。” ¹⁵然而，洛伊所说的历史价值指的是事实的准确性。（1910年，他记录了克罗族人讲述的一场与达科他族人作战的故事；1931年，同一位线人向他描述了这场战斗，但声称战斗的对手是夏安族人。）洛伊承认，如果把这些故事当作故事来看，它们的内容相当一致；它们按照克罗族叙事的标准模式分叉和分支。因此，他的发现实际上支持这样一种观点：在北美印第安人和南斯拉夫农民的传统故事讲述中，形式和风格的延续性超过了细节上的差异。 ¹⁶弗兰克·汉密尔顿·库欣（Frank Hamilton Cushing）在近一个世纪前就注意到祖尼人身上存在这种倾向的一个显著例子。1886年，他担任美国东部一个祖尼代表团的翻译。一天晚上，在轮流讲故事的环节中，他讲述了“公鸡和老鼠”的故事，这个故事是他从一本意大利民间故事书中读到的。大约一年后，他惊讶地发现，在祖尼，一位印第安人竟然也讲了同一个故事。意大利故事的主题仍然清晰可辨，足以用阿恩-汤普森分类法对这个故事进行分类（它是故事类型2032）。但故事的其他一切——它的框架、修辞手法、典故、风格和整体感觉——都变得极具祖尼特色。这个故事没有意大利化本土传说，反而被祖尼化了^。17

Lord’s investigation confirms conclusions that Vladimir Propp reached by a different mode of analysis, one that showed how variations of detail remain subordinate to stable structures in Russian folktales.¹⁴ Field workers among illiterate peoples in Polynesia, Africa, and North and South America have also found that oral traditions have enormous staying power. Opinions divide on the separate question of whether or not oral sources can provide a reliable account of past events. Robert Lowie, who collected narratives from the Crow Indians in the early twentieth century, took up a position of extreme skepticism: “I cannot attach to oral traditions any historical value whatsoever under any conditions whatsoever.” ¹⁵ By historical value, however, Lowie meant factual accuracy. (In 1910 he recorded a Crow account of a battle against the Dakota; in 1931 the same informant described the battle to him, but claimed that it had taken place against the Cheyenne.) Lowie conceded that the stories, taken as stories, remained quite consistent; they forked and branched in the standard patterns of Crow narrative. So his findings actually support the view that in traditional story telling continuities in form and style outweigh variations in detail, among North American Indians as well as Yugoslav peasants.¹⁶ Frank Hamilton Cushing noted a spectacular example of this tendency among the Zuni almost a century ago. In 1886 he served as interpreter to a Zuni delegation in the eastern United States. During a round robin of story telling one evening, he recounted as his contribution the tale of “The Cock and the Mouse,” which he had picked up from a book of Italian folktales. About a year later, he was astonished to hear the same tale from one of the Indians back at Zuni. The Italian motifs remained recognizable enough for one to be able to classify the tale in the Aarne-Thompson scheme (it is tale type 2032). But everything else about the story—its frame, figures of speech, allusions, style, and general feel—had become intensely Zuni. Instead of Italianizing the native lore, the story had been Zunified.¹⁷

毫无疑问，不同文化中故事的传播过程对其影响各不相同。有些民间传说体系能够比其他体系更有效地抵抗“污染”，同时吸收新的素材。但在几乎所有不识字的民族中，口头传统似乎都具有顽强的生命力和长久的传承。它们也不会在首次接触印刷文字时就消亡。尽管杰克·古迪认为识字率贯穿历史，将口头文化与“书面”或“印刷”文化分隔开来，但传统讲故事的方式似乎在识字率出现之后仍能蓬勃发展。对于那些在丛林中追踪故事的民族学家和民俗学家来说，19世纪末法国的农民讲故事的方式与他们的祖先一个世纪或更久以前的方式几乎如出一辙，这种说法并不令人意外。 ¹⁸

No doubt the transmission process affects stories differently in different cultures. Some bodies of folklore can resist “contamination” while absorbing new material more effectively than can others. But oral traditions seem to be tenacious and long-lived nearly everywhere among illiterate peoples. Nor do they collapse at their first exposure to the printed word. Despite Jack Goody’s contention that a literacy line cuts through all history, dividing oral from “written” or “print” cultures, it seems that traditional tale telling can flourish long after the onset of literacy. To anthropologists and folklorists who have tracked tales through the bush, there is nothing extravagant about the idea that peasant raconteurs in late nineteenth-century France told stories to one another pretty much as their ancestors had done a century or more earlier.¹⁸

尽管这些专家证词令人欣慰，但它并不能消除解读法国民间故事的所有难题。这些文本本身并不难获取，因为它们被珍藏在诸如巴黎民间艺术与传统博物馆之类的宝库中，以及保罗·德拉吕和玛丽-路易丝·特内兹合著的《法国民间故事》等学术著作中。然而，我们不能将它们从这些来源中取出，像审视旧制度时期那些由早已消逝的农民天真无邪的视角拍摄的照片那样进行研究。它们是故事。

Comforting as this expert testimony may be, it does not clear all the difficulties in the way of interpreting the French tales. The texts are accessible enough, for they lie unexploited in treasure houses like the Musée des arts et traditions populaires in Paris and in scholarly collections like Le Conte populaire français by Paul Delarue and Marie-Louise Tenèze. But one cannot lift them from such sources and hold them up to inspection as if they were so many photographs of the Old Regime, taken with the innocent eye of an extinct peasantry. They are stories.

如同大多数叙事类型一样，它们从传统主题中发展出标准化的情节，这些主题取材广泛，包罗万象。对于任何想要将它们精确定位到特定时间和地点的人来说，它们都缺乏明确的特征，这令人沮丧。雷蒙德·詹姆逊研究过一个九世纪的中国灰姑娘的故事。她不是从仙女教母那里得到水晶鞋，而是从一条神奇的鱼那里得到；她不是在皇家舞会上丢失了一只鞋，而是在乡村集市上丢失了一只；但她与佩罗笔下的女主角有着明显的相似之处。^民俗学家在希罗多德和荷马的著作中、在古埃及的纸莎草纸和迦勒底的石碑上都发现了它们的故事；他们还在世界各地记录了这些故事，包括斯堪的纳维亚半岛和非洲，以及孟加拉河沿岸的印度人和密苏里河沿岸的印度人。这种传播范围如此之广，以至于一些人开始相信存在原始故事以及一个基本的印欧神话、传说和故事库。这种倾向与弗雷泽、荣格和列维-斯特劳斯的宇宙理论相吻合，但对于试图了解近代早期法国农民心态的人来说，却无济于事。

As in most kinds of narration, they develop standardized plots from conventional motifs, picked up here, there, and everywhere. They have a distressing lack of specificity for anyone who wants to pin them down to precise points in time and place. Raymond Jameson has studied the case of a Chinese Cinderella from the ninth century. She gets her slippers from a magic fish instead of a fairy godmother and loses one of them at a village fête instead of a royal ball, but she bears an unmistakable resemblance to Perrault’s heroine.¹⁹ Folklorists have recognized their tales in Herodotus and Homer, on ancient Egyptian papyruses and Chaldean stone tablets; and they have recorded them all over the world, in Scandinavia and Africa, among Indians on the banks of the Bengal and Indians along the Missouri. The dispersion is so striking that some have come to believe in Ur-stories and a basic Indo-European repertory of myths, legends, and tales. This tendency feeds into the cosmic theories of Frazer and Jung and Lévi-Strauss, but it does not help anyone attempting to penetrate the peasant mentalities of early modern France.

幸运的是，民间传说中更为务实的倾向使得我们能够提炼出法国传统故事的独特特征。《法国民间故事集》 （Le Conte populaire français）根据阿恩-汤普森分类法对这些故事进行了编排，该分类法涵盖了所有印欧语系民间故事。因此，它为比较研究提供了基础，而比较结果则揭示了普遍主题如何在法国扎根和发展。例如，如果将《拇指汤姆》（Le Petit Poucet，故事类型327）与德国的《汉塞尔与格蕾特》进行比较，就会发现佩罗的版本以及农民的版本都带有浓厚的法国风味。格林兄弟的故事强调了神秘的森林和孩子们面对难以捉摸的邪恶时的天真无邪，并且增添了更多奇幻和诗意的元素，例如面包蛋糕屋和魔法鸟的细节描写。法国的孩子们虽然也遇到了食人魔，但却是在一个非常真实的房子里。食人魔先生和食人魔夫人像一对普通的夫妻一样讨论着他们的晚宴计划，他们互相唠叨，就像汤姆·拇指的父母一样。事实上，很难区分这两对夫妇。两个头脑简单的妻子都挥霍了家里的财产；她们的丈夫也以同样的方式责骂她们，只不过食人魔告诉他的妻子，她活该被吃掉，如果她不是那么令人倒胃口的“老畜生”（vieille bête ），他早就亲自动手了。20 与他们的德国亲戚不同，法国食人魔扮演着“户主”（le bourgeois de la maison ）的角色 ，²¹仿佛他们是富有的当地地主。他们拉小提琴，拜访朋友，在肥胖的食人魔妻子身边心满意足地打鼾；²²尽管他们粗鲁无礼，但他们始终是称职的丈夫和父亲，是称职的供养者^。因此，在《皮钦皮乔特》这首童谣中，当食人魔背着麻袋跳进屋子时，他欣喜若狂：“凯瑟琳，快把大水壶烧开！我抓住皮钦皮乔特了！” ²³

Fortunately, a more down-to-earth tendency in folklore makes it possible to isolate the peculiar characteristics of traditional French tales. Le Conte populaire français arranges them according to the Aarne-Thompson classification scheme, which covers all varieties of Indo-European folktales. It therefore provides the basis for comparative study, and the comparisons suggest the way general themes took root and grew in French soil. “Tom Thumb” (“Le Petit Poucet,” tale type 327), for example, has a strong French flavor, in Perrault as well as the peasant versions, if one compares it with its German cousin, “Hansel and Gretel.” The Grimms’ tale emphasizes the mysterious forest and the naïveté of the children in the face of inscrutable evil, and it has more fanciful and poetic touches, as in the details about the bread-and-cake house and the magic birds. The French children confront an ogre, but in a very real house. Monsieur and Madame Ogre discuss their plans for a dinner party as if they were any married couple, and they carp at each other just as Tom Thumb’s parents did. In fact, it is hard to tell the two couples apart. Both simple-minded wives throw away their family’s fortunes; and their husbands berate them in the same manner, except that the ogre tells his wife that she deserves to be eaten and that he would do the job himself if she were not such an unappetizing vieille bête (old beast).²⁰ Unlike their German relatives, the French ogres appear in the role of le bourgeois de la maison (burgher head of household),²¹ as if they were rich local landowners. They play fiddles, visit friends, snore contentedly in bed beside fat ogress wives;²² and for all their boorishness, they never fail to be good family men and good providers. Hence the joy of the ogre in “Pitchin-Pitchot” as he bounds into the house, a sack on his back: “Catherine, put on the big kettle. I’ve caught Pitchin-Pitchot.” ²³

德国童话故事保持着恐怖和奇幻的基调，而法国童话则增添了一丝幽默和家庭气息。火鸟栖息在鸡舍里。精灵、神灵、森林精灵，所有印欧语系的魔法生物，在法国都被简化为两种：食人魔和仙女。这些残存的生物也沾染了人类的弱点，通常让人类用自己的方式解决问题，也就是靠狡猾和“笛卡尔式思维”——法国人用这个词粗俗地形容他们爱耍诡计和阴谋诡计的倾向。在佩罗没有为他1697年出版的法式版《鹅妈妈童谣》改编的许多故事中，都能明显感受到法式风情： 例如，《小铁匠》（故事类型317）中年轻铁匠的潇洒风度，他在一次经典的环法之旅中杀死了巨人；又如《让·贝特》（故事类型675）中布列塔尼农民的乡土气息，他想要什么就能得到什么，却只想要一杯劣质葡萄酒和一碗牛奶土豆；又如《让·勒·泰涅》（故事类型314）中园艺大师的职业嫉妒，他修剪葡萄藤的技艺不如他的学徒；又如《美丽的尤拉莉》（故事类型313）中魔鬼之女的机智，她和情人私奔时，在他们的床上留下了两个会说话的土豆。正如我们不能将法国故事与特定事件联系起来一样，我们也不应该将它们稀释成永恒的普世神话。它们实际上属于中间地带：现代法国，或者说十五至十八世纪的法国。

Where the German tales maintain a tone of terror and fantasy, the French strike a note of humor and domesticity. Firebirds settle down into hen yards. Elves, genii, forest spirits, the whole Indo-European panoply of magical beings become reduced in France to two species, ogres and fairies. And those vestigial creatures acquire human foibles and generally let humans solve their problems by their own devices, that is, by cunning and “Cartesianism”—a term that the French apply vulgarly to their propensity for craftiness and intrigue. The Gallic touch is clear in many of the tales that Perrault did not rework for his own Gallicized Mother Goose of 1697: the panache of the young blacksmith in “Le Petit Forgeron” (tale type 317), for example, who kills giants on a classic tour de France; or the provincialism of the Breton peasant in “Jean Bête” (tale type 675), who is given anything he wishes and asks for un bon péché de piquette et une écuelle de patates du lait (“crude wine and a bowl of potatoes in milk”); or the professional jealousy of the master gardener, who fails to prune vines as well as his apprentice in “Jean le Teigneux” (tale type 314); or the cleverness of the devil’s daughter in “La Belle Eulalie” (tale type 313), who escapes with her lover by leaving two talking pates in their beds. Just as one cannot attach the French tales to specific events, one should not dilute them in a timeless universal mythology. They really belong to a middle ground: la France moderne or the France that existed from the fifteenth through the eighteenth century.

对于任何期望历史精确无误的人来说，这段时间跨度或许显得模糊不清，令人不安。但在“心智史”这一研究领域，精确性或许既不恰当也不可能，因为它需要的方法不同于政治史等传统史种。世界观无法像政治事件那样被记录下来，但它们同样“真实”。如果没有构成现实世界常识概念的初步心智秩序，政治便无从谈起。常识本身就是一种社会建构的现实，因文化而异。它远非某种集体想象的任意产物，而是特定社会秩序下共同经验的基础。因此，要重构旧制度下农民的世界观，首先应该探究他们的共同之处，以及他们在村庄日常生活中共同经历的体验。

That time span may look distressingly vague to anyone who expects history to be precise. But precision may be inappropriate as well as impossible in the history of mentalités, a genre that requires different methods from those used in conventional genres, like political history. World views can not be chronicled in the manner of political events, but they are no less “real.” Politics could not take place without the preliminary mental ordering that goes into the common-sense notion of the real world. Common sense itself is a social construction of reality, which varies from culture to culture. Far from being the arbitrary figment of some collective imagination, it expresses the common basis of experience in a given social order. To reconstruct the way peasants saw the world under the Old Regime, therefore, one should begin by asking what they had in common, what experiences they shared in the everyday life of their villages.

多亏了几代社会史学家的研究，这个问题才能得到解答。然而，由于王国内部情况千差万别，答案必须加以限定，且仅限于高度概括。直到法国大革命之前，甚至可能到19世纪的大部分时间里，王国始终是一个由众多地区组成的拼凑体，而非一个统一的国家。皮埃尔·古贝尔、埃马纽埃尔·勒鲁瓦·拉杜里、皮埃尔·圣雅各布、保罗·布瓦以及其他许多学者逐地揭示了法国各地农民生活的特殊性，并逐部专著对其进行了阐释。如此大量的专著使得法国社会史看起来像是一系列例外试图推翻既定规则的阴谋。然而，这里也存在着过度专业化的风险；因为如果与细节保持足够的距离，一幅总体图景便会逐渐显现。事实上，它已经在《法国经济和社会史》（巴黎，1970）等教科书和《法国农村史》 （巴黎，1975/76）等综合著作中得到收录 。大致过程如下^。24

Thanks to several generations of research by social historians, that question can be answered. The answer must be hedged with qualifications and restricted to a high level of generalization because conditions varied so much in the kingdom, which remained a patchwork of regions rather than a unified nation until the Revolution and perhaps even well into the nineteenth century. Pierre Goubert, Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, Pierre Saint-Jacob, Paul Bois, and many others have uncovered the particularities of peasant life region by region and have explicated them monograph by monograph. The density of monographs can make French social history look like a conspiracy of exceptions trying to disprove rules. Yet here, too, there exists a danger of misplaced professionalism; for if one stands at a safe enough distance from the details, a general picture begins to emerge. In fact, it has already reached the stage of assimilation in textbooks like Histoire économique et sociale de la France (Paris, 1970) and syntheses like Histoire de la France rurale (Paris, 1975/76). It goes roughly as follows.²⁴

尽管战乱、瘟疫和饥荒肆虐，法国早期近代时期的乡村社会秩序却保持着惊人的稳定。农民相对自由——虽然不如英国那些沦为无地劳工的自耕农自由，但比易北河以东那些陷入某种奴役状态的农奴自由。然而，他们却无法摆脱领主制度的束缚，这种制度剥夺了他们获得经济独立所需的土地，并榨取了他们所有的剩余产出。男人们从早到晚辛勤劳作，用类似罗马人的犁耕耘零星散落的土地，用原始的镰刀收割谷物，只为留下足够的茬子供大家放牧。妇女结婚较晚——通常在25至27岁——而且只生育五六个孩子，其中只有两三个能活到成年。大量民众长期处于营养不良状态，主要以面包和水熬成的粥为生，偶尔会吃些自家种植的蔬菜。他们一年只吃几次肉，要么是在节日，要么是在秋季宰杀牲畜之后——前提是没有足够的青贮饲料来喂养牲畜过冬。他们常常无法获得维持健康所需的每日两磅面包（2000卡路里），因此几乎无法抵御粮食短缺和疾病的双重打击。人口在1500万到2000万之间波动，不断增长到其生产能力的极限（平均人口密度为每平方公里40人，平均年出生率为每千人40人），却又被人口危机所摧毁。从1347年黑死病的首次肆虐到18世纪30年代人口和生产力的首次飞跃，四个世纪以来，法国社会一直被僵化的制度和马尔萨斯式的困境所束缚。它经历了一段停滞期，费尔南·布罗代尔和埃马纽埃尔·勒鲁瓦·拉杜里将其描述为“静止的历史”（l'histoire immobile ） ^。25

Despite war, plague, and famine, the social order that existed at village level remained remarkably stable during the early modern period in France. The peasants were relatively free—less so than the yeomen who were turning into landless laborers in England, more so than the serfs who were sinking into a kind of slavery east of the Elbe. But they could not escape from a seigneurial system that denied them sufficient land to achieve economic independence and that siphoned off whatever surplus they produced. Men labored from dawn to dusk, scratching the soil on scattered strips of land with plows like those of the Romans and hacking at their grain with primitive sickles, in order to leave enough stubble for communal grazing. Women married late—at age twenty-five to twenty-seven—and gave birth to only five or six children, of whom only two or three survived to adulthood. Great masses of people lived in a state of chronic malnutrition, subsisting mainly on porridge made of bread and water with some occasional, home-grown vegetables thrown in. They ate meat only a few times a year, on feast days or after autumn slaughtering if they did not have enough silage to feed the livestock over the winter. They often failed to get the two pounds of bread (2,000 calories) a day that they needed to keep up their health, and so they had little protection against the combined effects of grain shortage and disease. The population fluctuated between fifteen and twenty million, expanding to the limits of its productive capacity (an average density of forty souls per square kilometer, an average annual rate of forty births per thousand inhabitants), only to be devastated by demographic crises. For four centuries—from the first ravages of the Black Death in 1347 to the first great leap in population and productivity in the 1730s—French society remained trapped in rigid institutions and Malthusian conditions. It went through a period of stagnation, which Fernand Braudel and Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie have described as l’histoire immobile (unmoving history).²⁵

如今看来，这句话似乎有些夸张，因为它难以全面概括宗教冲突、粮食骚乱以及反抗国家权力扩张的叛乱如何扰乱了中世纪晚期乡村生活的格局。但“静止历史”（或称“长时段历史”）的概念最初于20世纪50年代提出时，旨在纠正人们将历史视为一系列政治事件的倾向。事件史（或称“事件历史”） 通常发生在遥远的巴黎和凡尔赛宫，与农民的日常生活脱节。尽管大臣更迭，战火纷飞，乡村生活却依旧如常，仿佛自远古时代以来就一直如此。

That phrase now seems exaggerated, for it hardly does justice to the religious conflict, grain riots, and rebellions against the extension of state power that disrupted the late medieval pattern of village life. But when first used in the 1950s, the notion of immobile history—a history of structural continuity over a long time span, la longue durée—served as a corrective to the tendency to see history as a succession of political events. Event history, histoire événementielle, generally took place over the heads of the peasantry, in the remote world of Paris and Versailles. While ministers came and went and battles raged, life in the village continued unperturbed, much as it had always been since times beyond the reach of memory.

在村落层面，历史似乎“停滞不前”，因为领主制和自给自足的经济模式使村民们终日劳作于土地之上，而原始的耕作技术又让他们无暇摆脱这种束缚。粮食产量与播种量之比始终维持在5:1左右，与现代农业相比，这种原始的回报微乎其微——现代农业每播种一粒种子就能收获十五粒甚至三十粒粮食。农民们既无法种植足够的粮食来喂养大量的牲畜，也没有足够的牲畜来生产足够的粪便来施肥，从而提高产量。这种恶性循环使他们只能采用三年或两年轮作的耕作方式，导致大片土地荒芜。他们无法将休耕地改种三叶草等能够为土壤固氮的作物，因为他们生活拮据，根本无力承担这样的风险，更何况当时没有人了解氮肥的作用。集体耕作方式也进一步限制了他们进行试验的空间。除了西部博卡日地区等少数有围垦地的地区外，农民们在开阔的田野中耕种零星的条状土地。他们集体播种和收割，以便进行集体拾穗和集体放牧。他们依靠田地以外的公共土地和森林获取牧场、柴火以及栗子或浆果。他们唯一可以尝试通过个人努力来改善生活的地方是与自家地块或 宅邸相连的后院。在这里，他们辛勤地堆放粪堆，种植亚麻用于纺纱，种植蔬菜，饲养家禽用于自酿啤酒和当地市场。

History looked “immobile” at the village level, because seigneurialism and the subsistence economy kept villagers bent over the soil, and primitive techniques of farming gave them no opportunity to unbend. Grain yields remained at a ratio of about 5-to- 1, a primitive return in contrast to modern farming, which produces fifteen or even thirty grains for every seed planted. Farmers could not raise enough grain to feed large numbers of animals, and they did not have enough livestock to produce the manure to fertilize the fields to increase the yield. This vicious circle kept them enclosed within a system of triennial or biennial crop rotation, which left a huge proportion of their land lying fallow. They could not convert the fallow to the cultivation of crops like clover, which return nitrogen to the soil, because they lived too close to penury to risk the experiment, aside from the fact that no one had any notion of nitrogen. Collective methods of cultivation also reduced the margin for experimentation. Except in a few regions with enclosures, like the bocage district of the west, peasants farmed scattered strips in open fields. They sowed and harvested collectively, so that common gleaning and common grazing could take place. They depended on common lands and forests beyond the fields for pasture, firewood, and chestnuts or berries. The only area where they could attempt to get ahead by individual initiative was the basse-cour or backyard attached to their household plots, or manses. Here they struggled to build up manure heaps, to raise flax for spinning, to produce vegetables and chickens for their home brews and local markets.

对于那些缺乏二十、三十甚至四十英亩土地以求经济独立的家庭来说，后院菜园往往是他们赖以生存的保障。他们需要如此多的土地，是因为他们的大部分收成都被领主的赋税、什一税、地租和各种税收所吞噬。在法国中部和北部的大部分地区，富裕的农民遵循着一条古老的法国原则——榨取穷人的钱财——操纵着主要皇家税收——人头税（taille）的征收。因此，税收在村庄内部造成了裂痕，而债务则加剧了这种损害。贫困的农民经常向富人借钱——也就是向少数相对富裕的“村中之王”（coqs du village）借钱，这些人拥有足够的土地，可以将多余的粮食拿到市场上出售，饲养牲畜，并雇佣穷人做工。债务奴役制度或许使得富裕的农民像领主和教会的什一税征收员一样令人憎恨。仇恨、嫉妒和利益冲突充斥着整个农民社会。这个村庄并非幸福和谐的共同体。

The backyard garden often provided the margin of survival for families that lacked the twenty, thirty, or forty acres that were necessary for economic independence. They needed so much land because so much of their harvest was drained from them by seigneurial dues, tithes, ground rents, and taxes. In most of central and northern France, the wealthier peasants rigged the collection of the main royal tax, the taille, in accordance with an old French principle: soak the poor. So tax collecting opened up fissures within the village, and indebtedness compounded the damage. The poorer peasants frequently borrowed from the rich—that is, the few relatively wealthy coqs du village (cocks of the walk), who owned enough land to sell surplus grain on the market, to build up herds, and to hire the poor as laborers. Debt peonage may have made the wealthy peasants hated as much as the seigneur and the ecclesiastical décimateur (tithe collector). Hatred, jealousy, and conflicts of interest ran through peasant society. The village was no happy and harmonious Gemeinschaft.

对大多数农民来说，乡村生活就是一场生存之战，而生存意味着勉强维持在贫困线之上。贫困线因地而异，取决于缴纳税款、什一税和领主税所需的土地面积；取决于能否储备足够的粮食以备来年播种；也取决于能否养活一家人。在粮食短缺时期，贫困家庭不得不购买食物。他们作为消费者饱受煎熬，而物价飞涨，富裕的农民则从中牟取暴利。因此，连年歉收会导致村庄贫富差距扩大，边缘家庭陷入赤贫，而富人则更加富有。面对这样的困境，“小人物” （petites gens）靠着他们的智慧生存下来。他们受雇于人做农活，在自家小屋里纺纱织布，做些零工，或者四处奔波，哪里有活就去哪里干。

For most peasants village life was a struggle for survival, and survival meant keeping above the line that divided the poor from the indigent. The poverty line varied from place to place, according to the amount of land necessary to pay taxes, tithes, and seigneurial dues; to put aside enough grain for planting next year; and to feed the family. In times of scarcity, poor families had to buy their food. They suffered as consumers, while prices shot up and the wealthier peasants made a killing. So a succession of bad harvests could polarize the village, driving the marginal families into indigence as the rich got richer. In the face of such difficulties, the “little people” (petites gens) survived by their wits. They hired themselves out as farm hands, spun and wove cloth in their cottages, did odd jobs, and took to the road, picking up work wherever they could find it.

他们中的许多人破产了。之后，他们彻底流落街头，与法国“流动人口”（flottante）的芸芸众生一起漂泊不定。到18世纪80年代，法国的流动人口已达数百万，其中不乏绝望的灵魂。除了少数幸运儿参加环法旅行团，以及偶尔出现的剧团和江湖骗子之外，流浪者的生活意味着永无止境地四处搜寻食物。他们偷鸡摸狗，挤无人照看的奶牛的奶，偷篱笆上晾晒的衣物，剪下马尾（可以卖给家具商），甚至为了冒充病人，在施舍处弄伤自己，伪装身体。他们加入又逃离一个又一个军团，充当假新兵。他们成了走私犯、拦路强盗、扒手、妓女。最后，他们要么投降于贫民收容所（hôpitaux），要么爬到灌木丛下或干草堆里死去——这些“呱呱叫”的死人^。26

Many of them went under. Then they took to the road for good, drifting about with the flotsam and jetsam of France’s population flottante (“floating population”), which included several million desperate souls by the 1780s. Except for the happy few on an artisanal tour de France and the occasional troupes of actors and mountebanks, life on the road meant ceaseless scavenging for food. The drifters raided chicken coops, milked untended cows, stole laundry drying on hedges, snipped off horses’ tails (good for selling to upholsterers), and lacerated and disguised their bodies in order to pass as invalids wherever alms were being given out. They joined and deserted regiment after regiment and served as false recruits. They became smugglers, highwaymen, pickpockets, prostitutes. And in the end they surrendered in hôpitaux, pestilential poor houses, or else crawled under a bush or a hay loft and died—croquants who had “croaked.”²⁶

即使是那些留在村庄、勉强维持在贫困线以上的家庭，死亡也同样无情地降临。正如皮埃尔·古贝尔、路易·亨利、雅克·杜帕基耶和其他历史人口学家所指出的，在近代早期的法国，生活处处都是一场与死亡的无情斗争。在诺曼底的克鲁莱，17世纪每1000名婴儿中就有236名在一周岁前夭折，而如今这一数字仅为20。18世纪出生的法国人中，约有45%在10岁前去世。幸存者中，很少有人能在父母至少一方去世前活到成年。而父母也鲜少能活到生育年龄的尽头，因为死亡总是会打断他们的生育。婚姻的终结并非离婚，而是死亡，平均持续时间仅为15年，只有如今法国婚姻持续时间的一半。在克鲁莱，五分之一的丈夫在妻子去世后会再婚。继母在各地比比皆是，远比继父多得多，因为寡妇的再婚率高达十分之一。继子女或许不会像灰姑娘那样受到优待，但兄弟姐妹之间的关系很可能十分紧张。新生儿的到来往往意味着贫困与赤贫之间的差别。即便新生儿的到来不会给家庭带来沉重的负担，但当父母的土地被分配给继承人时，由于继承人数量的增加，也可能使下一代陷入贫困^。27

Death came just as inexorably to families that remained in their villages and kept above the poverty line. As Pierre Goubert, Louis Henry, Jacques Dupâquier, and other historical demographers have shown, life was an inexorable struggle against death everywhere in early modern France. In Crulai, Normandy, 236 of every 1,000 babies died before their first birthdays during the seventeenth century, as opposed to twenty today. About 45 per cent of the Frenchmen born in the eighteenth century died before the age of ten. Few of the survivors reached adulthood before the death of at least one of their parents. And few parents reached the end of their procreative years, because death interrupted them. Terminated by death, not divorce, marriages lasted an average of fifteen years, half as long as they do in France today. In Crulai, one in five husbands lost his wife and then remarried. Stepmothers proliferated everywhere—far more so than stepfathers, as the remarriage rate among widows was one in ten. Stepchildren may not have been treated like Cinderella, but relations between siblings probably were harsh. A new child often meant the difference between poverty and indigence. Even if it did not overtax the family’s larder, it could bring penury down upon the next generation by swelling the number of claimants when the parents’ land was divided among their heirs.²⁷

每当人口增长，土地所有权便会分散，贫困现象也随之出现。长子继承制在某些地区减缓了这一进程，但各地最好的应对之策都是晚婚，这种做法必然会对家庭的情感生活造成影响。与当代印度的农民不同，旧制度下的农民通常要等到能够拥有自己的茅屋才会结婚，而且他们很少未婚生育，或者在四十岁以后才生育。例如，在贝桑港，女性平均在二十七岁结婚，四十岁停止生育。人口学家在十八世纪末之前没有发现任何节育或普遍存在的非婚生子女的证据。早期现代男性对生活的理解不足以让他们掌控生活。早期现代女性无法想象征服自然，所以她们顺应上帝的旨意生育——就像《小拇指》中拇指的母亲那样。但晚婚​​、生育期短以及长时间的哺乳（降低了受孕几率）限制了她的家庭规模。最残酷也最有效的限制来自死亡，她自己以及她的孩子在分娩和婴儿期夭折。死胎，被称为“克里斯森”（chrissons），有时会被随意埋葬在无名的集体墓地里。婴儿有时会被父母闷死在床上——从主教禁止父母与未满一周岁的孩子同睡的法令来看，这似乎是一种相当常见的意外。一家人挤在一两张床上，周围围着牲畜取暖。因此，孩子们成了父母性行为的旁观者。没有人把他们视为无辜的生灵，也没有人把童年本身视为一个独立的人生阶段，一个可以通过特殊的着装和行为方式与青春期、青年期和成年期明显区分开来的阶段。孩子们几乎一学会走路就开始和父母一起干活，一到十几岁就加入成人劳动力队伍，成为农场工人、仆人和学徒。

Whenever the population expanded, landholding fragmented and pauperization set in. Primogeniture slowed the process in some areas, but the best defense everywhere was delayed marriage, a tendency that must have taken its toll in the emotional life of the family. The peasants of the Old Regime, unlike those in contemporary India, generally did not marry until they could occupy a cottage, and they rarely had children out of wedlock or after they reached their forties. In Port-en-Bessin, for example, women married at twenty-seven and stopped bearing children at forty on the average. Demographers have found no evidence of birth control or widespread illegitimacy before the late eighteenth century. Early modern man did not understand life in a way that enabled him to control it. Early modern woman could not conceive of mastering nature, so she conceived as God willed it—and as Thumbkin’s mother did in “Le Petit Poucet.” But late marriage, a short period of fertility, and long stretches of breast-feeding, which reduces the likelihood of conception, limited the size of her family. The harshest and most effective limit was imposed by death, her own and those of her babies during childbirth and infancy. Stillborn children, called chrissons, were sometimes buried casually, in anonymous collective graves. Infants were sometimes smothered by their parents in bed—a rather common accident, judging by episcopal edicts forbidding parents to sleep with children who had not reached their first birthdays. Whole families crowded into one or two beds and surrounded themselves with livestock in order to keep warm. So children became participant observers of their parents’ sexual activities. No one thought of them as innocent creatures or of childhood itself as a distinct phase of life, clearly distinguishable from adolescence, youth, and adulthood by special styles of dress and behavior. Children labored alongside their parents almost as soon as they could walk, and they joined the adult labor force as farm hands, servants, and apprentices as soon as they reached their teens.

近代早期法国的农民生活在一个充满继母和孤儿、永无止境的辛劳以及残酷情感（既原始又压抑）的世界里。自那时以来，人类的境况发生了翻天覆地的变化，我们很难想象那些真正生活在肮脏、野蛮和短暂中的人们眼中的生活是怎样的。正因如此，我们才需要重读《鹅妈妈童谣》。

The peasants of early modern France inhabited a world of stepmothers and orphans, of inexorable, unending toil, and of brutal emotions, both raw and repressed. The human condition has changed so much since then that we can hardly imagine the way it appeared to people whose lives really were nasty, brutish, and short. That is why we need to reread Mother Goose.

不妨将佩罗的《鹅妈妈童谣》中最著名的四个故事——《穿靴子的猫》、《拇指汤姆》、《灰姑娘》和《荒唐的愿望》——与一些讲述相同主题的农民故事进行比较。

Consider four of the best-known stories from Perrault’s Mother Goose—“Puss ’n Boots,” “Tom Thumb,” “Cinderella,” and “The Ridiculous Wishes”—in comparison with some of the peasant tales that treat the same themes.

在《穿靴子的猫》中，一位贫穷的磨坊主去世了，把磨坊留给了长子，一头驴留给了次子，只留给了一只猫。“既没有请公证人，也没有请律师，”佩罗评论道，“他们会把这可怜的遗产瓜分殆尽。”显然，故事发生在法国，尽管在亚洲、非洲和南美洲也有类似的故事。法国农民和贵族的继承习俗通常通过优先继承长子来避免遗产被分割。然而，磨坊主的幼子却继承了一只猫，这只猫天生擅长家庭阴谋。这只“笛卡尔猫”在它周围看到的都是虚荣、愚蠢和永不满足的欲望；他利用这一切，通过一系列诡计，为主人赢得了一桩富裕的婚姻，并为自己赢得了一处漂亮的庄园。不过，在佩罗之前的某些版本中，主人最终欺骗了这只猫，而这只猫实际上是一只狐狸，而且没有穿靴子。

In “Puss ’n Boots,” a poor miller dies, leaving the mill to his eldest son, an ass to the second, and only a cat to the third. “Neither a notary nor a lawyer were called in,” Perrault observes “They would have eaten up the poor patrimony.” We are clearly in France, although other versions of this theme exist in Asia, Africa, and South America. The inheritance customs of French peasants, as well as noblemen, often prevented the fragmentation of the patrimony by favoring the eldest son. The youngest son of the miller, however, inherits a cat who has a genius for domestic intrigue. Everywhere around him, this Cartesian cat sees vanity, stupidity, and unsatisfied appetite; and he exploits it all by a series of tricks, which lead to a rich marriage for his master and a fine estate for himself, although in some of the pre-Perrault versions the master ultimately dupes the cat, who is actually a fox and does not wear boots.

口头传说《狐狸精》（故事类型460）的开头与此类似：“从前有两兄弟，继承了父亲留下的遗产。哥哥约瑟负责农场。弟弟巴蒂斯特只分到几个铜板；他有五个孩子，却几乎无力养活他们，最终陷入了赤贫。” ²⁸绝望之下，巴蒂斯特向哥哥乞讨粮食。约瑟让他脱掉破烂的衣服，赤身裸体地站在雨中，在粮仓里打滚。他可以带走身上沾满的粮食。巴蒂斯特为了兄弟之爱，照做了，但他最终没能得到足够的粮食养活家人，于是他踏上了流浪之路。最终，他遇到了善良的仙女拉雷纳德，仙女帮助他解开了一系列谜题，最终找到了埋藏的金罐，实现了农夫的梦想：房子、田地、牧场、林地，“他的孩子们每天都能吃到一块蛋糕。” ²⁹

A tale from the oral tradition, “La Renarde” (tale type 460), begins in a similar way: “Once there were two brothers, who took up the inheritances left to them by their father. The older, Joseph, kept the farm. The younger, Baptiste, received only a handful of coins; and as he had five children and very little to feed them with, he fell into destitution.”²⁸ In desperation, Baptiste begs for grain from his brother. Joseph tells him to strip off his rags, stand naked in the rain, and roll in the granary. He can keep as much grain as adheres to his body. Baptiste submits to this exercise in brotherly love, but he fails to pick up enough food to keep his family alive, so he takes to the road. Eventually he meets a good fairy, La Renarde, who helps him solve a string of riddles, which lead to a pot of buried gold and the fulfillment of a peasant’s dream: a house, fields, pasture, woodland, “and his children had a cake apiece every day.”²⁹

《拇指汤姆》（法语原名《Le Petit Poucet》，故事类型327）是法语版的《汉塞尔与格蕾特》，尽管佩罗的标题取自一个属于故事类型700的故事。即使在佩罗的淡化版本中，它也展现了马尔萨斯主义世界的一角：“从前，有一个樵夫和他的妻子，他们有七个孩子，全是男孩……他们非常贫穷，七个孩子给他们带来了很大的麻烦，因为没有一个孩子能养活自己……后来，一年非常艰难，饥荒非常严重，这些可怜的人决定除掉他们的孩子。”这种平淡的语气表明，在近代早期法国，儿童死亡已经变得多么司空见惯。佩罗创作这篇故事时正值17世纪90年代中期，十七世纪最严重的人口危机时期——瘟疫和饥荒肆虐法国北部，穷人只能靠制革工人丢弃在街上的内脏充饥，尸体上常常发现嘴里叼着草，母亲们将无法喂养的婴儿“遗弃”在野外，任其生病死去。汤姆·拇指的父母将孩子遗弃在森林里，正是为了应对十七、十八世纪农民们屡次面临的困境——在人口灾难时期如何生存下去。

“Tom Thumb” (“Le Petit Poucet,” tale type 327) is a French version of “Hansel and Gretel,” although Perrault took his title from a tale that belongs to type 700. It provides a glimpse of the Malthusian world, even in Perrault’s watered-down version: “Once upon a time there was a woodsman and his wife, who had seven children, all boys.... They were very poor, and their seven children were a great inconvenience, because none was old enough to support himself.... A very difficult year came, and the famine was so great that these poor folk resolved to get rid of their children.” The matter-of-fact tone suggests how commonplace the death of children had become in early modern France. Perrault wrote his tale in the mid-1690s, at the height of the worst demographic crisis in the seventeenth century—a time when plague and famine decimated the population of northern France, when the poor ate offal thrown in the street by tanners, when corpses were found with grass in their mouths and mothers “exposed” the infants they could not feed so that they got sick and died. By abandoning their children in the forest, Tom Thumb’s parents were trying to cope with a problem that overwhelmed the peasantry many times in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries—the problem of survival during a period of demographic disaster.

在农民版本的童话故事和其他一些故事中，也存在着同样的母题，以及其他形式的杀婴和虐待儿童的情节。有时，父母会把孩子赶到街头乞讨或偷窃；有时，他们自己也会逃走，留下孩子在家乞讨；有时，他们会把孩子卖给魔鬼。在法语版的《魔法师的学徒》（La Pomme d'orange，故事类型325）中，一位父亲被“像筛子上的孔一样多的孩子”压得喘不过气来，³⁰这句话在好几个故事中都出现过，应该理解为对马尔萨斯压力的一种夸张描述，而不是对家庭规模的描述。当一个新生儿出生时，父亲会把孩子卖给魔鬼（在某些版本中是巫师），以换取十二年的充足食物供应。时间到了，多亏男孩想出了一个计谋，他才把男孩找了回来。这个小家伙在学徒期间学会了一系列伎俩，包括把自己变成动物的能力。不久，家里的橱柜空空如也，一家人再次面临饥饿。男孩于是把自己变成一条猎犬，好让父亲再次把它卖给魔鬼。魔鬼再次化身为猎人出现。父亲拿到钱后，猎犬逃走，变回了男孩。他们再次故技重施，这次男孩变成了一匹马。魔鬼这次戴上了一个魔法项圈，阻止马变回男孩。但一个农夫把马引到池塘边喝水，马趁机变成青蛙逃走了。魔鬼变成鱼，正要吞食青蛙时，青蛙变成了一只鸟。魔鬼化作一只鹰，追逐着那只鸟。鸟飞进垂死国王的卧室，变成了一个橘子。随后，魔鬼又化作医生，要求国王用橘子来换取治好国王的病。橘子散落在地上，变成了小米粒。魔鬼变成一只鸡，开始狼吞虎咽地吃小米粒。但最后一粒小米粒变成了一只狐狸，最终狐狸吞噬了母鸡，赢得了这场变形比赛。这个故事不仅仅是为了娱乐。它生动地展现了对稀缺资源的争夺，将穷人与富人、“小人物” （menu peuple，petites gens）与“大人物” （les gros，les grands）对立起来。 有些版本通过将魔鬼塑造成“领主”（seigneur）的角色，并在结尾处写道：“就这样，仆人吃掉了主人。” ³¹

The same motif exists in the peasant versions of the tale and in other tales, along with other forms of infanticide and child abuse. Sometimes the parents turn their children out on the road as beggars and thieves. Sometimes they run away themselves, leaving the children to beg at home. And sometimes they sell the children to the devil. In the French version of “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” (“La Pomme d’orange,” tale type 325), a father is overwhelmed by “as many children as there are holes in a sieve,”³⁰ a phrase that occurs in several tales and that should be taken as hyperbole about Malthusian pressure rather than as evidence about family size. When a new baby arrives, the father sells it to the devil (a sorcerer in some versions) in exchange for receiving a full larder for twelve years. At the end of that time, he gets the boy back, thanks to a ruse that the boy devises, for the little rogue has picked up a repertory of tricks, including the power to transform himself into animals, during his apprenticeship. Before long, the cupboard is bare and the family is facing starvation again. The boy then changes himself into a hunting dog, so that his father can sell him once more to the devil, who reappears as a hunter. After the father has collected the money, the dog runs away and returns home as a boy. They try the same trick again, with the boy transformed into a horse. This time the devil keeps hold of a magic collar, which prevents the horse from changing back into a boy. But a farm hand leads the horse to drink at a pond, thereby, giving it a chance to escape in the form of a frog. The devil turns into a fish and is about to devour it, when the frog changes into a bird. The devil becomes a hawk and pursues the bird, which flies into the bedroom of a dying king and takes the form of an orange. Then the devil appears as a doctor and demands the orange in exchange for curing the king. The orange spills onto the floor, transformed into grains of millet. The devil turns into a chicken and starts to gobble up the grains. But the last grain turns into a fox, which finally wins the transformation contest by devouring the hen. The tale did not merely provide amusement. It dramatized the struggle over scarce resources, which pitted the poor against the rich, the “little people” (menu peuple, petites gens) against “the big” (les gros, les grands). Some versions make the social comment explicit by casting the devil in the role of a “seigneur” and concluding at the end: “And thus did the servant eat the master.”³¹

吃还是不吃，这是农民在民间传说和日常生活中都面临的问题。它出现在许多故事中，通常与恶毒继母的主题联系在一起。在旧制度时期，继母在乡村社会中扮演着举足轻重的角色，因此这一主题在当时的家庭中必然引起了强烈的共鸣。佩罗在《灰姑娘》中对这一主题进行了恰当的刻画，但他却忽略了与之相关的营养不良问题，而这一问题在农民版本的童话故事中尤为突出。在一个常见的版本（《小安妮特》，故事类型511）中，恶毒的继母每天只给可怜的安妮特一块面包皮，让她照看羊群，而她那肥胖懒惰的继姐们则整天在屋里闲逛，享用羊肉大餐，把她们的碗筷留给安妮特从田里回来后洗。安妮特即将饿死时，圣母玛利亚显灵，给了她一根魔杖。每当安妮特用魔杖触碰一只黑羊，就能变出一顿丰盛的盛宴。不久，安妮特变得比她的继姐妹们都丰腴起来。然而，她新获得的美貌——在旧制度下，如同许多原始社会一样，肥胖被视为美的象征——引起了继母的怀疑。继母用计谋找到了那只神奇的羊，杀死了它，并将羊肝端给了安妮特。安妮特设法将羊肝偷偷埋了起来，羊肝长成了一棵大树，树高耸入云，除了安妮特之外，无人能够摘到果实；因为每当安妮特靠近，树枝都会弯下来，让她摘取。一位路过的王子（和全国其他人一样贪吃）非常想要这些果实，于是承诺娶能摘到果实的少女为妻。为了给女儿们找到合适的夫婿，继母建造了一架巨大的梯子。然而，当她尝试爬梯子时，却不慎摔下，摔断了脖子。安妮特随后采摘了水果，嫁给了王子，从此过上了幸福的生活。

To eat or not to eat, that was the question peasants confronted in their folklore as well as in their daily lives. It appears in a great many of the tales, often in connection with the theme of the wicked stepmother, which must have had special resonance around Old Regime hearths because Old Regime demography made stepmothers such important figures in village society. Perrault did justice to the theme in “Cinderella,” but he neglected the related motif of malnutrition, which stands out in the peasant versions of the tale. In one common version (“La Petite Annette,” tale type 511), the wicked stepmother gives poor Annette only a crust of bread a day and makes her keep the sheep, while her fat and indolent stepsisters lounge around the house and dine on mutton, leaving their dishes for Annette to wash upon her return from the fields. Annette is about to die of starvation, when the Virgin Mary appears and gives her a magic wand, which produces a magnificent feast whenever Annette touches it to a black sheep. Before long the girl is plumper than her stepsisters. But her new beauty—and fatness made for beauty under the Old Regime as in many primitive societies—arouses the stepmother’s suspicions. By a ruse, the stepmother discovers the magic sheep, kills it, and serves its liver to Annette. Annette manages to bury the liver secretly and it grows into a tree, which is so high that no one can pick its fruit, except Annette; for it bends its branches down to her whenever she approaches. A passing prince (who is as gluttonous as everyone else in the country) wants the fruit so badly that he promises to marry the maiden who can pick some for him. Hoping to make a match for one of her daughters, the stepmother builds a huge ladder. But when she tries it out, she falls and breaks her neck. Annette then gathers the fruit, marries the prince, and lives happily ever after.

营养不良和父母疏忽在几个故事中同时出现，尤其是《美人鱼与小妖精》（故事类型316）和《布里吉特，那个不给我饭吃，却给我吃东西的妈妈》（故事类型713）。对食物的渴望几乎贯穿所有这些故事，甚至在佩罗的童话中也有体现，在《荒唐的愿望》中以滑稽的形式出现。一个贫穷的樵夫因做好事而得到奖赏，可以实现三个愿望。他反复思量，最终食欲大增，许愿要一根香肠。香肠出现在盘子里后，他那令人难以忍受的唠叨妻子却因为浪费了这个愿望而大发雷霆，于是他许愿香肠长在妻子的鼻子上。面对着一个毁容的妻子，他又许愿让她恢复原状；于是他们又回到了以前悲惨的生活。

Malnutrition and parental neglect go together in several tales, notably “La Sirène et l‘épervier” (tale type 316) and “Brigitte, la maman qui m’a pas fait, mais m’a nourri” (tale type 713). The quest for food can be found in nearly all of them, even in Perrault, where it appears in burlesque form in “The Ridiculous Wishes.” A poor woodsman is promised the fulfillment of any three wishes as a reward for a good deed. While he ruminates, his appetite overcomes him; and he wishes for a sausage. After it appears on his plate, his wife, an insufferable scold, quarrels so violently over the wasting of the wish that he wishes the sausage would grow on her nose. Then, confronted with a disfigured spouse, he wishes her back to her normal state; and they return to their former miserable existence.

在农民故事中，愿望通常以食物的形式出现，而且从不显得荒诞。退伍落魄的士兵拉·拉梅（La Ramée）——一个类似受虐待继女的典型人物——在《魔鬼与流氓元帅》（Le Diable et le maréchal ferrant，故事类型330）中沦为乞丐。他与其他乞丐分享了最后的几个便士，其中一人竟是乔装打扮的圣彼得，作为回报，他被允许许下任何愿望。他没有选择天堂，而是祈求“一顿饱饭”——或者在其他版本中，祈求“白面包和一只鸡”、“一个面包卷、一根香肠和尽可能多的酒”、“烟草和他在客栈里看到的食物”，或者“永远有一块面包皮”。32^一旦拥有了魔杖、戒指或超自然的帮助，农民英雄首先想到的总是食物。他在点餐时从不展现任何想象力。他只是拿当天的菜，而且总是千篇一律：朴实的农家菜，虽然会因地区而异，比如科西嘉盛宴上供应的“蛋糕、炸面包和奶酪块” （canistrelli e fritelli, pezzi di broccio） 。 ³³ 通常，农家故事讲述者不会详细描述食物。由于缺乏任何美食概念，他只是把主人公的盘子装得满满的；如果他想增添一些奢华感，他会补充道：“甚至还有餐巾纸。” ³⁴

Wishing usually takes the form of food in peasant tales, and it is never ridiculous. The discharged, down-and-out soldier, La Ramée, a stock character like the abused stepdaughter, is reduced to beggary in “Le Diable et le maréchal ferrant” (tale type 330). He shares his last pennies with other beggars, one of whom turns out to be Saint Peter in disguise, and as a reward he is granted any wish he wants. Instead of taking paradise, he asks for “a square meal”—or, in other versions, “white bread and a chicken,” “a bun, a sausage, and as much wine as he can drink,” “tobacco and the food he saw in the inn,” or “to always have a crust of bread.”³² Once supplied with magic wands, rings, or supernatural helpers, the first thought of the peasant hero is always for food. He never shows any imagination in his ordering. He merely takes the plat du jour, and it is always the same: solid peasant fare, though it may vary with the region, as in the case of the “cakes, fried bread, and pieces of cheese” (canistrelli e fritelli, pezzi di broccio) served up in a Corsican feast.³³ Usually the peasant raconteur does not describe the food in detail. Lacking any notion of gastronomy, he simply loads up his hero’s plate; and if he wants to supply an extravagant touch, he adds, “There were even napkins.”³⁴

有一项奢侈尤为突出：肉。在一个事实上以素食者为主的社会里，能大快朵颐地享用一块羊肉、猪肉或牛肉，便是奢侈中的奢侈。《瓦尔达尔王国》（故事类型400）中的婚礼宴席上，烤乳猪四处奔跑，叉子插在它们的侧腹，供宾客们随意取用。法国版的著名鬼故事《食尸鬼》（故事类型366）讲述了一个农家女孩每天都坚持要吃肉的故事。她的父母无法满足她这异乎寻常的渴望，只好给她切下一条刚埋葬的尸体的腿。第二天，尸体出现在厨房里，命令女孩先洗右腿，再洗左腿。当女孩发现左腿不见了时，尸体尖叫道：“你把它吃了！”然后，它把女孩拖回坟墓，把她吞噬了。后来的英文版本，尤其是马克·吐温笔下广为人知的《金臂》，情节相同，但删去了肉食元素——而这似乎正是旧制度下农民们对这个故事着迷的原因。无论他们吃的是肉还是粥，吃饱肚子始终是法国农民英雄们最渴望的。即使灰姑娘最终嫁给了王子，她也依然渴望吃饱。“她用魔杖碰了碰黑羊，立刻，一张摆满美食的桌子出现在她面前。她想吃什么就吃什么，而且吃得饱饱的。” ³⁵吃饱喝足，直到食欲耗尽（manger à sa faim）， ³⁶是农民们梦寐以求的快乐，也是他们一生中鲜少实现的快乐。

One extravagance clearly stands out: meat. In a society of de facto vegetarians, the luxury of luxuries was to sink one’s teeth into a side of mutton, pork, or beef. The wedding feast in “Royaume des Valdars” (tale type 400) includes roast pigs who run around with forks sticking out of their flanks so that the guests can help themselves to ready-carved mouthfuls. The French version of a common ghost story, “La Goulue” (tale type 366), concerns a peasant girl who insists on eating meat every day. Unable to satisfy this extraordinary craving, her parents serve her a leg they have cut off a newly buried corpse. On the next day, the corpse appears before the girl in the kitchen. It orders her to wash its right leg, then its left leg. When she sees that the left leg is missing, it screams, “You ate it.” Then it carries her back to the grave and devours her. The later, English versions of the tale, notably “The Golden Arm” made famous by Mark Twain, have the same plot without the carnivorousness—the very element that seems to have made the story fascinating for the peasants of the Old Regime. But whether they filled up on meat or porridge, the full belly came first among the wishes of the French peasant heroes. It was all the peasant Cinderella aspired to, even though she got a prince. “She touched the black sheep with the magic wand. Immediately a fully decked table appeared before her. She could eat what she wanted, and she ate a bellyful.”³⁵ To eat one’s fill, eat until the exhaustion of the appetite (manger à sa faim),³⁶ was the principal pleasure that the peasants dangled before their imaginations, and one that they rarely realized in their lives.

他们也幻想过其他梦想成真，包括城堡和公主之类的老生常谈。但他们的愿望通常都局限于日常生活中常见的物品。一个英雄得到了“一头牛和几只鸡”；另一个英雄得到了一柜子的亚麻布。第三个英雄满足于轻松的工作、规律的饮食和一斗烟丝。而当金子如雨般落入第四个英雄的壁炉时，他用这些金子买了“食物、衣服、马和土地”。 ³⁷在大多数故事中，愿望的实现最终变成了一种生存策略，而非逃离现实的幻想。

They also imagined other dreams coming true, including the standard run of castles and princesses. But their wishes usually remained fixed on common objects in the everyday world. One hero gets “a cow and some chickens”; another, an armoire full of linens. A third settles for light work, regular meals, and a pipe full of tobacco. And when gold rains into the fireplace of a fourth, he uses it to buy “food, clothes, a horse, land.”³⁷ In most of the tales, wish fulfillment turns into a program for survival, not a fantasy of escape.

尽管偶尔带有奇幻色彩，但这些故事仍然根植于现实世界。它们几乎总是发生在两个基本框架之内，这两个框架分别对应着旧制度下农民生活的双重背景：一方面是家庭和村庄；另一方面是开阔的道路。村庄与道路之间的对立贯穿了整个故事，正如它贯穿了十八世纪法国各地农民的生活一样^。38

Despite the occasional touches of fantasy, then, the tales remain rooted in the real world. They almost always take place within two basic frameworks, which correspond to the dual setting of peasant life under the Old Regime: on the one hand, the household and village; on the other, the open road. The opposition between the village and the road runs through the tales, just as it ran through the lives of peasants everywhere in eighteenth-century France.³⁸

在旧制度下，农民家庭只有全家劳动，作为一个经济单位共同劳作，才能生存下去。民间故事中经常出现父母在田间劳作，而孩子们则负责捡柴、放羊、打水、纺羊毛或乞讨的场景。这些故事非但没有谴责剥削童工的行为，反而对童工现象的缺失表示愤慨。在《三个纺纱女》（故事类型501）中，一位父亲决心除掉他的女儿，因为“她只吃不干活”。^他劝说国王，女儿一晚上能纺七 束亚麻（100,800码），而实际上她吃了七张薄饼（故事发生在昂古莫瓦）。国王命令她完成惊人的纺纱壮举，并承诺如果她成功就娶她为妻。三个神奇的纺纱女，一个比另一个畸形更严重，替她完成了任务，她们唯一的要求就是被邀请参加婚礼。当她们出现时，国王询问她们畸形的原因。他们回答说，是因为过度劳累；他们警告他，如果他允许新娘继续纺纱，她也会变得和他一样丑陋。于是，女孩逃离了奴役，父亲摆脱了一个贪吃鬼，穷人扭转了局面，战胜了富人（在一些版本中，当地的领主取代了国王）。

Peasant families could not survive under the Old Regime unless everyone worked, and worked together as an economic unit. The folktales constantly show parents laboring in the fields while the children gather wood, guard sheep, fetch water, spin wool, or beg. Far from condemning the exploitation of child labor, they sound indignant when it does not occur. In “Les Trois Fileuses” (tale type 501), a father resolves to get rid of his daughter, because “she ate but did not work.”³⁹ He persuades the king that she can spin seven fusées (100,800 yards) of flax a night, whereas in fact she eats seven crêpes (we are in Angoumois). The king orders her to do prodigious feats of spinning, promising to marry her if she succeeds. Three magic spinning women, one more deformed than the other, accomplish the tasks for her and in return ask only to be invited to the wedding. When they appear, the king inquires about the cause of their deformities. Overwork, they reply; and they warn him that his bride will look every bit as hideous if he permits her to continue spinning. So the girl escapes from slavery, the father gets rid of a glutton, and the poor turn the tables on the rich (in some versions the local seigneur takes the place of the king).

法国版的《鲁姆佩尔斯蒂尔岑》（故事类型500以及一些与故事类型425相关的版本）遵循着相同的情节。一位母亲因为女儿不干活而殴打她。当一位路过的国王或当地领主询问发生了什么事时，母亲便编造了一个计谋，想要摆脱这个不劳而获的家庭成员。她辩称女儿干活太多，甚至到了痴迷的地步，连床垫上的稻草都要纺。国王觉得这主意不错，便把女儿带走，命令她完成一些超乎常人的任务：她必须把整堆干草纺成满屋子的亚麻布，每天装卸五十车粪肥，还要把成堆的麦子和麦糠分开。虽然最终这些任务总能在超自然力量的帮助下完成，但它们以夸张的方式表达了农民生活的一个基本事实：每个人都面临着永无止境的劳作，从孩提时代到生命的尽头。

The French versions of “Rumpelstilzchen” (tale type 500 and some related versions of tale type 425) follow the same scenario. A mother beats her daughter for not working. When a passing king or the local seigneur asks what the matter is, the mother devises a ruse to get rid of an unproductive member of the family. She protests that the girl works too much, so obsessively, in fact, that she would spin the very straw in their mattresses. Sensing a good thing, the king carries off the girl and orders her to perform superhuman tasks: she must spin whole haystacks into rooms full of linen, load and unload fifty carts of manure a day, separate mountains of wheat from chaff. Although the tasks always get done in the end, thanks to supernatural intervention, they express a basic fact of peasant life in hyperbolic form. Everyone faced endless, limitless labor, from early childhood until the day of death.

婚姻并不能提供解脱；相反，它加重了女性的负担，因为婚姻使她们不得不从事“外包”制度（家庭手工业），以及家庭和农场的劳作。故事中总是描绘农妇们在照料牲畜、搬运木柴或割草一天后，还要坐在纺车前纺纱的场景。有些故事夸张地描绘了她们的劳动，比如她们被套上犁，用头发从井里挑水，或者用裸露的乳房清洗炉灶。 ⁴⁰ 即使婚姻意味着接受新的劳动负担和生育的风险，贫穷的女孩也需要嫁妆才能步入婚姻殿堂——除非她愿意嫁给青蛙、乌鸦或某种丑陋的野兽。这些动物并不总是会变成王子，尽管这是一种常见的逃避现实的方式。在一个滑稽模仿农民婚姻策略的故事版本（《嫁给动物的女儿们》，故事类型552）中，父母分别将女儿嫁给了狼、狐狸、野兔和猪。根据爱尔兰和北欧的版本，这些新婚夫妇踏上了一系列冒险之旅，这些冒险是动物变回人类所必需的。而法国版本则简单地讲述了母亲来访时，这些年轻夫妇端上来的食物——狼弄来的羊肉、狐狸弄来的火鸡、野兔偷来的卷心菜，以及猪的粪便。女儿们找到了各自不同的供养者，她们必须接受自己的命运；每个人都继续从事着觅食谋生的基本工作。

Marriage offered no escape; rather, it imposed an additional burden because it subjected women to work within the “putting-out” system (cottage industry) as well as work for the family and for the farm. The tales invariably place peasant wives at the spinning wheel after a day of tending livestock, hauling wood, or mowing hay. Some stories provide hyperbolic pictures of their work, showing them yoked to ploughs or hauling water up a well with their hair or cleaning ovens with their bare breasts.⁴⁰ And even though marriage meant accepting a new load of labor and the new danger of childbearing, a poor girl needed a dowry to enter into it—unless she would settle for a frog, a crow, or some hideous beast. The animals did not always turn into princes, although that was a common form of escapism. In one burlesque version of peasant marriage strategy (“Les Filles mariées à des animaux,” tale type 552), the parents marry their daughters off to a wolf, a fox, a hare, and a pig. According to the Irish and North European versions of the tale, the couples set off on a series of adventures, which are necessary to metamorphose the animals back into men. The French versions simply recount what the young couples serve when the mother comes calling—mutton procured by the wolf, turkey fetched by the fox, cabbage filched by the hare, and filth from the pig. Having found good providers, each after his own fashion, the daughters must accept their lot in life; and everyone gets on with the basic business of foraging for a living.

在这些故事中，儿子们拥有更大的发挥空间。他们探索着农民生活的另一面——流浪之路。男孩们踏上寻觅财富的旅程，往往在乞讨面包屑的老妪的帮助下找到它。这些老妪实际上是伪装成老妪的善良仙女。尽管有超自然力量的帮助，英雄们最终还是会踏入现实世界，通常是为了逃离家乡的贫困，去寻找更好的工作。他们并非总能遇到公主。在《野兽的语言》（故事类型670）中，一个找到牧羊工作的贫穷男孩帮助了一条神奇的蛇。作为回报，他找到了一些埋藏的金子：“他把金子装满了口袋，第二天早上就把羊群赶回农场，向主人求婚。她是村里最漂亮的姑娘，他早就爱慕她了。主人见牧羊人富有，便把姑娘嫁给了他。八天后，他们就结婚了；由于农夫夫妇年老体衰，便让女婿独自掌管农场。” ⁴¹这就是农民故事里那些梦幻般的情节。

Sons have more room to maneuver in the tales. They explore the second dimension of peasant experience, life on the road. The boys set out in search of their fortune, and often find it, thanks to the help of old crones, who beg for a crust of bread and turn out to be beneficent fairies in disguise. Despite the supernatural intervention, the heroes walk off into a real world, usually in order to escape poverty at home and to find employment in greener pastures. They do not always get princesses. In “Le Langage des bêtes” (tale type 670), a poor lad who has found work as a shepherd comes to the aid of a magic snake. In return, he finds some buried gold: “He filled his pockets with it and the next morning he led his flock back to the farm and asked to marry his master’s daughter. She was the prettiest girl in the village, and he had loved her for a long time. Seeing that the shepherd was rich, the father gave him the girl. Eight days later they were married; and as the farmer and his wife were old, they made their son-in-law sole master of the farm.”⁴¹ Such was the stuff that dreams were made of in the peasant tales.

还有一些男孩因为家里没有土地、没有工作、没有食物而被迫踏上旅途。 ⁴²他们成了农场工人或家仆，或者，在最好的情况下，成为学徒——学徒的可能是铁匠、裁缝、木匠、巫师，甚至是魔鬼。《熊的让》（故事类型 301B）中的主人公在铁匠那里工作了五年，然后带着一根铁杖出发，这根铁杖是他劳动的报酬。在旅途中，他结识了形形色色的旅伴（扭曲橡树和切片山），勇敢地闯入鬼屋，击败巨人，杀死怪物，并娶了一位西班牙公主。这些都是标准的冒险故事，但它们都符合典型的法国之旅的框架。《无畏的让》（故事类型 326）和许多其他深受喜爱的法国故事英雄都遵循着同样的模式。⁴³他们的经历发生在一个对于年轻时四处奔波的工匠和经常在夏季收割后离开家人，作为牧羊人、小贩和流动劳工跋涉数百英里的农民来说，都是熟悉的场景。

Other boys take to the road because there is no land, no work, no food at home.⁴² They become farm hands or domestic servants or, in the best of cases, apprentices—to blacksmiths, tailors, carpenters, sorcerers, and the devil. The hero of “Jean de l’Ours” (tale type 301B) serves five years with a blacksmith, then sets off with an iron staff, which he takes as payment for his labor. Once en route he picks up strange fellow travelers (Twist-Oak and Slice-Mountain), braves haunted houses, fells giants, slays monsters, and marries a Spanish princess. Standard adventures, but they fall within the framework of a typical tour de France. “Jean-sans-Peur” (tale type 326) and many of the other favorite heroes of the French tales follow the same scenario.⁴³ Their exploits take place in a setting that would have been familiar to an audience of artisans who had spent their youth on the road and to peasants who regularly left their families after the summer harvest and covered hundreds of miles as shepherds, peddlers, and migratory laborers.

他们的旅途处处充满危险，因为法国当时没有有效的警察力量，强盗和狼群仍然在中央高原、汝拉山脉、孚日山脉、朗德省和博卡日地区广袤的荒野中游荡，将村庄分隔开来。人们只能徒步穿越这片险恶的土地，如果无法在农舍乞讨到食物或付得起旅店的床位，就只能睡在干草堆或灌木丛下——即便如此，他们仍然很有可能被抢走钱包或被割喉。当法国版的拇指汤姆和汉塞尔与格蕾特敲响森林深处神秘房屋的大门时，狼群在他们身后嚎叫，这增添了一丝现实感，而非奇幻色彩。当然，开门的确实是食人魔和女巫。但在许多故事中（例如《酒馆里的男孩》，故事类型461），这些房子里藏匿着像曼德林和卡图什那样的匪帮，他们在十八世纪确实让旅行变得危机四伏。结伴而行可以保护自己，但你永远无法信任你的旅伴。他们或许会救你于危难之中，就像《半只鸡》（故事类型563）和《无与伦比的船》（故事类型283）中那样；但当他们闻到赃物的气味时，也可能反过来对付你，就像《熊的让》（故事类型301B）中那样。小路易的父亲告诫他永远不要和驼背、跛子或卡库斯（一种被社会排斥的绳索匠）同行（故事类型531），他的忠告是对的。任何不寻常的事物都代表着威胁。但没有任何方法能够完全解读路上的危险。

They confronted danger everywhere on their travels, for France had no effective police force, and bandits and wolves still roamed through the wild lands separating villages in vast stretches of the Massif Central, the Jura, Vosges, Landes, and bocage. Men had to make their way through this treacherous territory by foot, sleeping at night under haystacks and bushes when they could not beg hospitality in farms or pay for a bed in an inn—where they still stood a good chance of having their purses stolen or their throats cut. When the French versions of Tom Thumb and Hansel and Gretel knock at the doors of mysterious houses deep in the forest, the wolves baying at their backs add a touch of realism, not fantasy. True, the doors are opened by ogres and witches. But in many tales (“Le Garçon de chez la bucheronne,” tale type 461, for example), the houses contain gangs of bandits like those of Mandrin and Cartouche, who really did make traveling hazardous in the eighteenth century. There was protection from traveling in groups, but you could never trust your fellow travelers. They might save you from disaster, as in “Moitié Poulet” (tale type 563) and “Le Navire sans pareil” (tale type 283); or they might turn on you when they caught the scent of booty, as in “Jean de l’Ours” (tale type 301B). Petit Louis’ father was right when he advised the boy never to travel with a hunchback, a lame man, or a Cacous (a pariah-like ropemaker) (tale type 531). Anything out of the ordinary represented a threat. But no formula was adequate to the task of decoding danger on the road.

对于涌上法国公路的大多数人来说，“寻宝”不过是乞讨的委婉说法。故事中到处都是乞丐，是真正的乞丐，而非伪装成乞丐的仙女。在《手镯》（故事类型590）中，贫困压垮了一位寡妇和她的儿子，他们放弃了村边的茅屋，背着所有家当，走上了流浪之路。他们穿过一片险恶的森林，遇到了一伙强盗和一家济贫院，最终才靠着一条神奇的手镯获救。在《两个旅行者》（故事类型613）中，两名退伍士兵抽签决定谁要被挖去双眼。由于极度饥饿，他们想不出任何生存之道，只能组成乞丐团队，一个盲人和他的监护人。在《诺鲁阿斯》（故事类型563）中，一季亚麻的收成决定着一个生活在小块土地上的农民家庭的生死。亚麻长势喜人，但诺鲁阿斯这股恶风却在亚麻晾晒于田间时将其吹走。农民带着棍棒出发，誓要将诺鲁阿斯打死。然而，他的粮食很快就用完了，像个流浪汉一样，沦落到乞讨面包屑和马厩里的一角。最终，他在山顶上找到了诺鲁阿斯。“把我的亚麻还给我！把我的亚麻还给我！”他嘶声喊道。风儿怜悯他，给了他一块神奇的桌布，只要展开，就能变出一顿饭。农民饱餐一顿后，在一家客栈过夜，却被女主人洗劫一空。在与诺鲁阿斯又一番搏斗后，他得到了一根魔杖，用它痛击女主人，迫使她交出了桌布。从此，这位农夫过上了幸福的生活——也就是说，他的粮食储备充足——但他的故事也揭示了那些在村里的贫困和流落街头的赤贫之间摇摆不定的人们的绝望处境^。44

For most of the population flooding France’s roads, fortune seeking was a euphemism for beggary. Beggars swarm through the tales, real beggars, not merely fairies in disguise. When poverty overwhelms a widow and her son in “Le Bracelet” (tale type 590), they abandon their hut at the edge of the village and take to the road, carrying all their goods in a single sack. Their way leads through a menacing forest to a gang of robbers and the poor house before rescue finally comes from a magic bracelet. In “Les Deux Voyageurs” (tale type 613), two discharged soldiers draw lots to see which shall have his eyes put out. Desperate for food, they can think of no way to survive except by operating as a team of beggars, the blind man and his keeper. In “Norouâs” (tale type 563), a single crop of flax means the difference between survival and destitution for a peasant family living on a tiny plot of land. The crop is good, but the bad wind Norouâs blows the flax away while it is drying in the field. The peasant sets out with a club to beat Norouas to death. But he runs out of provisions and soon is begging for crusts and a corner in the stable, like any vagabond. Finally he finds Norouâs on top of a mountain. “Give me back my flax! Give me back my flax!” he screams. Taking pity on him, the wind gives him a magic tablecloth, which produces a meal whenever it is unfolded. The peasant “eats his fill” and spends the next night in an inn, only to be robbed by the hostess. After two more rounds with Norouâs, he receives a magic staff, which thrashes the hostess, forcing her to surrender the cloth. The peasant lives happily—that is, with a full larder—ever after, but his tale illustrates the desperation of those tottering on the line between poverty in the village and destitution on the road.⁴⁴

因此，每当我们回溯到佩罗笔下的农民版《鹅妈妈童谣》时，都会发现其中蕴含着现实主义的元素——并非对农舍生活的如照片般描绘（农民的孩子数量远不及筛子上的孔洞，他们也不会吃掉孩子），而是一幅与社会历史学家从档案中拼凑出的所有资料相吻合的画面。这幅画面恰如其分，而这种契合至关重要。通过展现村民在村庄和道路上的日常生活，这些故事帮助农民们找到了方向。它们描绘了世事的图景，并揭示了在一个残酷的社会秩序中，指望得到任何超越残酷的东西都是徒劳的。

Thus, whenever one looks behind Perrault to the peasant versions of Mother Goose, one finds elements of realism—not photographic accounts of life in the barnyard (peasants did not actually have as many children as there are holes in a sieve, and they did not eat them) but a picture that corresponds to everything that social historians have been able to piece together from the archives. The picture fits, and the fit was a matter of consequence. By showing how life was lived, terre a terre, in the village and on the road, the tales helped orient the peasants. They mapped the ways of the world and demonstrated the folly of expecting anything more than cruelty from a cruel social order.

然而，要证明民间故事的幻想和逃避现实的娱乐背后隐藏着社会现实主义的内核，这种论证还不够深入。 ⁴⁵农民们即便没有“小红帽”的故事，也能体会到生活的残酷。从印度到爱尔兰，从非洲到阿拉斯加，残酷的现象在民间故事和社会历史中都随处可见。如果我们想要在解读法国故事时超越模糊的概括，就需要了解它们与其他类型故事有何不同。我们至少需要尝试进行一些简单的比较分析。

To show that a substratum of social realism underlay the fantasies and escapist entertainment of folktales is not to take the argument very far, however.⁴⁵ The peasants could have learned that life was cruel without the help of “Little Red Riding Hood.” Cruelty can be found in folktales as well as in social history everywhere from India to Ireland and from Africa to Alaska. If we are to get beyond vague generalizations in interpreting the French tales, we need to know whether something set them off from other varieties. We need to make at least a brief attempt at comparative analysis.

首先，让我们来看看英语使用者最熟悉的鹅妈妈童谣。诚然，十八世纪英国流传下来的、形形色色的摇篮曲、数数歌和粗俗歌曲，与十七世纪法国佩罗创作《鹅妈妈的故事》时所借鉴的故事集截然不同 。但英国的鹅妈妈童谣与法国的鹅妈妈童谣一样，都具有一定的启发意义；幸运的是，其中许多童谣都可以追溯到特定时期，因为诗句本身就带有鲜明的时代印记。例如，《贝勒岛围城战》与七年战争有关，《扬基歌》与美国独立战争有关，《约克老公爵》与法国大革命战争有关。然而，尽管人们一直试图将它们与更遥远过去的人物和事件联系起来，但大多数童谣似乎都创作于1700年之后。像艾奥娜和彼得·奥皮这样的专家几乎没有找到任何证据来支持以下说法：矮胖子是理查三世，卷毛是查理二世，小威利·温基是威廉三世，小玛菲特是苏格兰女王玛丽，蜘蛛是约翰·诺克斯^。46

Consider, first, the Mother Goose that is most familiar to English speakers. Admittedly, the disparate collection of lullabies, counting rhymes, and bawdy songs that became attached to the name of Mother Goose in eighteenth-century England bears little resemblance to the stock of tales that Perrault drew on for his Contes de ma mère l’oye in seventeenth-century France. But the English Mother Goose is as revealing in its way as the French; and fortunately a good deal of it can be dated, because the verses proclaim their character as period pieces. “At the Siege of Belle Isle” belongs to the Seven Years’ War, “Yankee Doodle” to the American Revolution, and “The Grand Old Duke of York” to the French revolutionary wars. Most of the rhymes, however, appear to be relatively modern (post-1700), despite persistent attempts to link them with names and events in the remoter past. Experts like Iona and Peter Opie have found little evidence for the assertions that Humpty Dumpty was Richard III, that Curly Locks was Charles II, that Wee Willie Winkie was William III, that Little Miss Muffet was Mary Queen of Scots, and that the spider was John Knox.⁴⁶

总之，这些童谣的历史意义更多地在于其语气而非典故。它们比法国和德国的童谣更轻松诙谐，或许是因为其中许多都创作于十七世纪之后，当时英国摆脱了马尔萨斯主义的控制。但在一些较古老的诗句中，也隐约透露出人口困境的哀伤。例如，与《小拇指》中母亲对应的英国版本：

In any case, the historical significance of the rhymes lies more in their tone than in their allusions. They have more gaiety and whimsy than the French and German tales, perhaps because so many of them belong to the period after the seventeenth century when England freed itself from the grip of Malthusianism. But there is a note of demographic agony in some of the older verses. Thus the English counterpart to the mother of Le Petit Poucet:

他们有时会沿着道路消失，就像都铎-斯图亚特王朝的童谣里唱的那样：

And they sometimes disappeared down the road, as in the Tudor-Stuart rhyme:

老鹅妈妈的故事里，生活很艰难。许多人物都陷入了贫困潦倒的境地：

Life was hard in the old Mother Goose. Many characters sank into destitution:

总的来说，英国的童谣与法国的故事有一定的相似之处。然而，两者并不完全可比，因为它们属于不同的体裁。虽然法国人也给孩子们唱一些数数歌和摇篮曲，但他们从未发展出类似英国童谣的体系；而英国也从未像法国那样拥有丰富多彩的民间故事。尽管如此，民间故事在英国的繁荣程度足以让我们进行一些比较，并进一步将比较范围扩展到意大利和德国，在那里我们可以进行更系统的探讨。

In general, then, the rhymes of England have some affinity with the tales of France. The two are not really comparable, however, because they belong to different genres. Although the French sang some contines (counting rhymes) and lullabies to their children, they never developed anything like the English nursery rhymes; and the English never developed as rich a repertory of folktales as the French. Nevertheless, the folktale flourished enough in England for one to venture a few comparative remarks and then to extend the comparisons to Italy and Germany, where they can be pursued more systematically.

英国民间故事与童谣一样，充满了奇思妙想、幽默风趣和天马行空的细节。它们都围绕着许多相同的角色展开：傻瓜西蒙、费尔医生、哥谭的智者、《杰克盖的房子》中的杰克，尤其是民间故事的主人公拇指汤姆。他的名字被用于英国第一部重要的童谣集——《拇指汤姆的优美歌谣集》（1744年）。⁴⁷但拇指汤姆与他的法国表亲小拇指（Le Petit Poucet）却截然不同。英国故事着重描写了他的恶作剧和他那小人国式的奇特装扮：“仙女们给他戴上橡树叶做的帽子，穿上蜘蛛网做的衬衫，蓟绒做的外套，羽毛做的裤子。他的袜子是用苹果皮做的，用他母亲的一根睫毛系着，鞋子是用老鼠皮做的，里面还缝着老鼠毛。” ⁴⁸然而，这些细节并没有给普塞的生活增添多少光彩。法国故事（故事类型700）没有提及他的衣着，也没有让他得到仙女或其他超自然生物的帮助。相反，故事将他置于一个艰苦的农民世界，展现了他如何凭借智慧抵御强盗、狼群和村里的牧师——这是“小人物”对抗大人物贪婪的唯一武器。

English folktales have much of the whimsy, humor, and fanciful details that appear in the nursery rhymes. They concern many of the same characters: Simple Simon, Dr. Fell, the Wise Men of Gotham, Jack of “The House That Jack Built,” and especially Tom Thumb, the hero of the folktale, who loaned his name to the first important collection of nursery rhymes to be published in England, Tommy Thumb’s Pretty Song Book (1744).⁴⁷ But Tom Thumb bears little resemblance to his French cousin, Le Petit Poucet. The English tale dwells on his pranks and the Lilliputian quaintness of his dress: “The fairies dressed him in a hat made of an oak-leaf, a shirt of spiders’ web, jacket of thistle-down, and trousers of feathers. His stockings were of apple-rind, tied with one of his mother’s eyelashes, and his shoes of mouse-skin, with the hair inside.” ⁴⁸ No such details brightened the life of Poucet. The French tale (tale type 700) does not mention his clothing and does not provide him with help from fairies or any other supernatural beings. Instead, it places him in a harsh, peasant world and shows how he fends off bandits, wolves, and the village priest by using his wits, the only defense of the “little people” against the rapacity of the big.

尽管鬼怪妖精众多，英国童话世界似乎更加和蔼可亲。就连杀死巨人的情节也发生在梦乡；因此，在某个口头版本中，《杰克与巨人》的故事就是这样开始的：

Despite a considerable population of ghosts and goblins, the world of the English tales seems far more genial. Even giant killing takes place in a land of nod; thus the beginning of “Jack the Giant-Killer” in one oral version:

法国的巨人杀手属于另一个物种：根据同一故事的不同版本（故事类型328），他被称为小让、帕尔勒或小富特克斯。他是一个身材矮小的幼子，“机智过人……总是活泼机敏”，他和几个讨厌的哥哥一起参军，哥哥们说服国王派他去执行一项自杀式任务：从巨人那里偷取宝藏。像大多数法国巨人一样，这位“好心人”并不住在豆茎上的某个梦幻之地。他是一位当地的地主，拉着小提琴，和妻子吵架，还邀请邻居们来享用烤小男孩的盛宴。小让不仅带着宝藏逃之夭夭，他还戏弄巨人，在巨人睡梦中折磨他，在巨人的汤里放过咸的盐，甚至骗巨人的妻子和女儿把自己烤死在烤箱里。最后，国王把看似不可能完成的任务交给了小让：亲自去抓捕巨人。小英雄乔装成国王，驾着一辆装满巨大铁笼的马车出发了。

The French giant killer belongs to another species: Petit Jean, Parle, or Le Petit Fûteux, according to different versions of the same story (tale type 328). A pint-sized younger son, “extraordinarily sharp witted ... always lively and alert,” he joins the army with his nasty older brothers, who persuade the king to send him on the suicidal mission of stealing treasure from a giant. Like most French giants, this “bonhomme” does not live in a never-never land somewhere over the beanstalk. He is a local landlord, who plays the fiddle, quarrels with his wife, and invites the neighbors in for feasts of roasted little boys. Petit Jean does not merely run away with the treasure; he bamboozles the giant, torments him in his sleep, oversalts his soup, and tricks his wife and daughter into baking themselves to death in an oven. Finally, the king assigns Petit Jean the seemingly impossible task of capturing the giant himself. The little hero sets off disguised as a monarch and driving a coach loaded with a huge iron cage.

于是巨人进了笼子。小让把笼子锁上了。巨人拼命挣扎，试图挣脱牢笼，但最终筋疲力尽。小让这才表明了自己的真实身份，并将愤怒无助的巨人交给了真正的国王。国王赏赐给他一位公主^。50

So the giant gets in the cage. Petit Jean locks it. And after the giant exhausts himself trying to break the bars, Petit Jean announces his true identity and delivers his victim, helpless with rage, to the true king, who rewards him with a princess.⁵⁰

如果将意大利元素融入同一类型故事的不同版本中，就能观察到故事风味的变化：从英式奇幻到法式诡谲，再到意式滑稽。以301型故事为例，讲述的是从被魔法笼罩的地下世界拯救公主的故事。英式英雄是另一个杰克，法式英雄则是让。杰克听从矮人的指示解救公主。他进入深渊，追逐魔法球，并在铜宫、金宫和银宫中接连斩杀巨人。法式英雄让则面临着更加险恶的环境。他的同伴将他抛弃在鬼屋里，让他落入魔鬼之手；当他救出公主后试图从深渊中爬出来时，同伴们割断了绳子。意大利英雄让是一位宫廷面包师，因与国王的女儿调情而被驱逐出城。他经历了同样的危险，走过同样的道路，但他的行动既滑稽又英勇。魔鬼乘着魔法球从鬼屋的烟囱里下来，试图在面包师脚下弹跳绊倒他。面包师毫不慌乱，先是站在椅子上，然后是桌子，最后又站在桌子上的椅子上，一边拔着鸡毛，一边任由那邪恶的魔法球在他周围无力地弹跳。魔鬼无法破解这番戏法，只好从魔法球里出来，提出帮忙准备饭菜。面包师让他帮忙拿柴火，然后灵巧地砍下了他的头。在地下坑里，他又用类似的伎俩砍下了绑架公主的巫师的头。就这样，他用一连串的诡计，最终赢得了真爱。这个故事的情节与英文版和法文版完全相同，与其说是通往童话世界，不如说是通往意大利即兴喜剧的途径^。51

If one blends an Italian variety into the different versions of the same tale type, one can observe the flavor changing from English fantasy to French cunning and Italian burlesque. In the case of tale type 301, which concerns the rescue of princesses from an enchanted underworld, the English hero is another Jack, the French another Jean. Jack frees his princesses by following the instructions of a dwarf. He descends into a pit, runs after a magic ball, and slays a succession of giants in copper, gold, and silver palaces. The French Jean has to contend with more treacherous surroundings. His fellow travelers abandon him to the devil in a haunted house and then cut the rope when he tries to haul himself out of the pit after delivering the princesses. The Italian hero, a palace baker who is run out of town for flirting with the king’s daughter, follows the same path through the same dangers, but he does so in a spirit of buffoonery as well as bravura. The devil comes down the chimney of the haunted house in a magic ball and tries to trip him by bouncing between his feet. Unperturbed, the baker stands on a chair, then on a table, and finally on a chair mounted on the table while plucking a chicken as the diabolical ball pounds helplessly around him. Unable to overcome this circus act, the devil steps out of the ball and offers to help prepare the meal. The baker asks him to hold the firewood and then deftly chops off his head. He uses a similar trick in the underground pit to behead a sorcerer, who meanwhile has abducted the princess. Thus piling trick on trick, he finally wins his true love. The plot, identical to those in the English and French versions, seems to lead through the Commedia dell’ Arte rather than into any kind of fairy land.⁵¹

如果将意大利童话与德国童话进行比较，意大利童话中那种滑稽而又权谋的元素就更加突出了。意大利版的《想知道什么是恐惧的少年》（格林童话4）中包含了一段阿方斯-加斯顿式的戏法，主人公先一步落入一系列陷阱，最终智胜了魔鬼。 ⁵²意大利版的小红帽用一块满是钉子的蛋糕戏弄了狼，但后来，就像法国童话一样，狼骗小红帽吃了奶奶，然后自己又吃了奶奶。 ⁵³意大利版的穿靴子的猫（故事类型545，格林童话106）与法国版相似，但与德国版不同，它是一只狐狸，利用周围人的虚荣心和轻信，为主人赢得了一座城堡和一位公主。而意大利版的《蓝胡子》则展现了一个故事在结构不变的情况下，其基调可以发生多么巨大的变化。

The buffa-Machiavellianism of the Italian tales comes through even more strongly, if they are compared with the German. The Italian version of “The Youth Who Wanted to Know What Fear Was” (Grimm 4) contains an Alphonse-Gaston routine, in which the hero out-tricks the devil by making him go first through a succession of traps.⁵² The Italian Little Red Riding Hood bamboozles the wolf by tossing him a cake full of nails, although later, as in the French tales, he tricks her into eating grandmother and then eats her himself.⁵³ The Italian Puss ’n Boots, like the French but unlike the German (tale type 545, Grimm 106), is a fox who plays on the vanity and gullibility of everyone around him to win a castle and a princess for his master. And the Italian “Bluebeard” shows how completely a tale can change in tone while remaining the same in structure.

在意大利，蓝胡子是一个魔鬼，他雇佣一群农家女孩为他洗衣服，然后用那把通往禁忌之门的钥匙引诱她们，将她们一个个送入地狱。这扇门通往地狱；所以当女孩们尝试打开它时，火焰会从门里窜出，烧焦他放在她们头发上的一朵花。魔鬼游历归来后，那朵被烧焦的花告诉他，女孩们已经触犯了禁忌；于是他一个接一个地把她们扔进火里——直到他遇到露西亚。露西亚的姐姐们失踪后，她同意为他工作。她也打开了那扇禁忌之门，但只打开了一小会儿，让她瞥见了火焰中的姐姐们。因为她事先把花放在了安全的地方，魔鬼无法惩罚她违背了禁忌。相反，她获得了控制魔鬼的力量——至少足以让他实现一个愿望。她请他帮忙把一些洗衣袋带回她妈妈家，这样她妈妈就能帮她处理堆积如山的脏衣服了。魔鬼接受了任务，并吹嘘说他力大无穷，可以一口气把袋子扛回去，中间不用停下来休息。露西亚回答说她会让他说到做到，因为她有远见卓识。然后她把她的姐妹们从地狱之火中救了出来，偷偷地把她们藏进了洗衣袋里。很快，魔鬼就把她们扛回了安全的地方。每当他停下来休息的时候，她们就喊道：“我看到你了！我看到你了！”最后，露西亚用同样的计谋脱身了。就这样，所有的女孩都安全了，她们利用魔鬼完成了这项任务，还顺便戏弄了他一番^。54

In Italy, Bluebeard is a devil, who lures a succession of peasant girls into hell by hiring them to do his laundry and then tempting them with the usual device of the key to the forbidden door. The door leads to hell; so when they try it, flames leap out, singeing a flower that he places in their hair. After the devil returns from his travels, the singed flower shows him that the girls have broken the taboo; and he tosses them into the flames, one after the other—until he comes to Lucia. She agrees to work for him after her older sisters have disappeared. And she, too, opens the forbidden door, but just enough to glimpse her sisters in the flames. Because she has had the foresight to leave her flower in a safe place, the devil cannot condemn her for disobedience. On the contrary, she acquires power over him—enough, at least, to be granted one wish. She asks him to carry some laundry bags back to her mama so that she can have help in coping with the gigantic backlog of filthy washing that he has accumulated. The devil accepts the task and boasts that he is strong enough to make the entire trip without laying the bags down for a rest. Lucia replies that she will hold him to his word, for she has the power to see great distances. Then she frees her sisters from the hellfire and sneaks them into the laundry bags. Soon the devil is lugging them back to safety. Every time he begins to stop for a rest they call out, “I see you! I see you!” In the end, Lucia frees herself by the same ruse. So all the girls reach safety, using the devil himself to do the job and making a fool of him while they are at it.⁵⁴

德语版的童话故事（格林童话 46）与意大利语版情节相同，但以阴森恐怖的笔触取代了意大利语版的幽默。故事中的反派是一位神秘的巫师，他将女孩们掳走，带到一座位于阴森森林深处的城堡。那间禁室是一间恐怖的密室，叙述着重描写了谋杀过程：“他把她扔下，揪着她的头发拖着她走，在木桩上砍下她的头，把她剁成碎片，鲜血流淌在地上。然后他把她和剩下的尸体一起扔进了水盆里。” ⁵⁵女主人公逃脱了这种命运，并凭借手中的钥匙获得了某种控制巫师的魔法力量。她将妹妹们残缺的尸体重新拼凑起来，使她们复活。然后，她把她们藏在一个篮子里，用金子包裹起来，命令巫师把篮子带给她的父母，而她自己则准备着与巫师的婚礼。她用新娘的饰品和鲜花装点一个骷髅头，把它放在窗台上。然后她把自己装扮成一只巨鸟，在蜂蜜和羽毛中滚来滚去。巫师在她返回的路上遇见了她，便问她婚礼的准备情况。她用诗句回答说，他的新娘已经打扫好了房子，正在窗边等他。巫师匆匆赶路；当他和同伙聚集在一起准备举行仪式时，女孩的亲戚们悄悄靠近，锁上门，放火烧了房子，把里面的人全部烧死了。

The German version of the tale (Grimm 46) follows the same story line, but it adds macabre touches where the Italian version uses humor. The villain is a mysterious wizard, who carries the girls off to a castle in the midst of a gloomy forest. The forbidden room is a chamber of horrors, and the narrative dwells on the murdering itself: “He threw her down, dragged her along by her hair, cut her head off on the block, and hewed her in pieces so that her blood ran on the ground. Then he threw her into the basin with the rest.”⁵⁵ The heroine escapes this fate and acquires some magic power over the wizard by holding on to her key. She brings her sisters back to life by reassembling their mutilated corpses. Then she hides them in a basket, covers it with gold, and orders the wizard to carry it to her parents, while she prepares for the wedding that is to unite her with the wizard. She dresses a skull in bridal ornaments and flowers and sets it in a window. Then she disguises herself as a giant bird by rolling in honey and feathers. Coming upon her on her way back, the wizard asks her about the wedding preparations. She answers in verse that his bride has cleaned the house and is waiting for him at the window. The wizard hurries on; and when he and his accomplices have gathered for the ceremony, the girl’s kinsmen sneak up, lock the doors, and burn the house to the ground with everyone in it.

正如前文所述，包括佩罗在内的法国版本（故事类型311和312）虽然包含一些令人毛骨悚然的细节，但远不及格林兄弟的版本恐怖。有些版本着重描写逃跑的计谋，而大多数版本则依靠女主角的拖延战术来营造戏剧效果：她缓缓穿上婚纱，而反派（可能是魔鬼、巨人、留着蓝色或绿色胡子的“先生”）则磨刀霍霍，她的兄弟们则赶来营救。相比之下，英文版本似乎显得轻松愉快。《彼得兔历险记》的开头颇有彼得兔的风格，讲述了偷窃卷心菜的故事。故事穿插着谜语和精灵的情节，但没有出现肢解尸体的画面，结尾则是干净利落的巨人被沸水烫死。⁵⁶虽然每个故事都遵循相同的结构，但不同传统中的版本却产生了完全不同的效果——意大利版本是滑稽的，德国版本是恐怖的，法国版本是戏剧性的，英国版本是滑稽的。

As already mentioned, the French versions (tale types 311 and 312), including Perrault’s, contain some gruesome details but nothing approaching the horror of the Grimms. Some of them emphasize the escape ruse, and most depend for their dramatic effect on the delaying tactics of the heroine, who slowly dons her wedding dress, while the villain (a devil, a giant, a “Monsieur” with a blue or green beard) sharpens his knife and her brothers rush to the rescue. The English versions seem almost jolly in comparison. “Peerifool” begins in Peter Rabbit fashion, with some robbing of a cabbage patch. It meanders through episodes involving riddles and elves but no hacked-up corpses, and it ends with some good, clean giant killing (by boiling water).⁵⁶ Although each story adheres to the same structure, the versions in the different traditions produce entirely different effects—comic in the Italian versions, horrific in the German, dramatic in the French, and droll in the English.

当然，讲故事的人可以根据讲述方式的不同，让故事产生几乎任何效果。我们无从得知两个世纪前，不同版本的“蓝胡子”故事在欧洲各地听众心中究竟产生了怎样的影响。即便能够得知，通过比较同一故事的不同版本来推断民族性格也是荒谬的。但是，对几个故事进行系统性的比较，有助于我们提炼出赋予法国口头传统独特特征的要素。比较的最佳时机是在故事最相似的地方，例如法语和德语版本。如果进行详尽的研究，其篇幅足以写成好几卷，其中会包含大量的统计数据和结构图。但是，在一篇文章的篇幅内，我们应该能够提出一些普遍性的论点。

Of course, a storyteller could produce almost any effect from a tale, depending on how he told it. There is no way of knowing what effects the different versions of “Bluebeard” actually produced on listeners in different parts of Europe two centuries ago. And even if that could be known, it would be absurd to draw conclusions about national character by comparing variations of a single tale. But systematic comparisons of several tales should help one to isolate the qualities that gave the French oral tradition its peculiar character. The comparing works best where the tales are most comparable, in the French and German versions. If done thoroughly, it could extend to many volumes filled with statistics and structural diagrams. But one should be able to do enough within the bounds of a single essay to advance a few general propositions.

以《死神教父》（故事类型332）为例。法语版和德语版的结构完全相同：（a）一个穷人选择死神作为儿子的教父。（b）死神让儿子成为一名成功的医生。（c）儿子试图欺骗死神，结果丧命。在两个版本中，父亲都拒绝接受上帝作为教父，因为他认为上帝偏爱富人和权贵，而死神则平等对待所有人。格林兄弟对德语版故事的转述否定了这种不敬神的行为：“那人如此说道，因为他并不知道上帝是如何巧妙地分配财富和贫穷的。” ⁵⁷法语版则没有给出明确的答案，而是进一步暗示欺骗是一种非常有效的生存方式。医生之所以发了财，是因为死神为他提供了一种绝对可靠的预知能力。当他看到死神站在病人床脚时，他就知道病人即将死去。当死神出现在床头时，病人就会康复，而且可以服用任何假药。在其中一个故事里，医生成功预言了一位领主的死亡，作为回报，欣喜若狂的继承人送给了他两座农场。在另一个故事里，他看到死神出现在一位公主的床脚，便转动公主的身体，骗过了死神。公主活了下来，他娶了她，两人幸福地生活到了耄耋之年。当一位德国医生尝试同样的计谋时，死神掐住了他的喉咙，把他拖到一个满是蜡烛的山洞里，每根蜡烛都代表一条生命。医生看到自己的蜡烛即将熄灭，便恳求死神延长他的寿命。但死神还是吹灭了蜡烛，医生倒在了死神的脚下死去。法国医生最终也难逃同样的命运，但他成功地延缓了死亡的到来。在一个版本中，他请求在蜡烛熄灭前念一遍《天主经》，并通过故意让祷告未念完来欺骗死神，让他得以继续活下去。死神最终以路边尸体的形象将他捉住——这在近代早期欧洲司空见惯，也引发了人们普遍的反应：一句老生常谈，为这个故事画上了一个略显悲凉的句号。诚然，这个故事表明，没有人能够逃脱死神的魔爪，至少从长远来看是如此。但这种欺骗行为确实让这位法国人短暂地逃过一劫。

Consider “Godfather Death” (tale type 332). The French and German versions have exactly the same structure: (a) A poor man chooses Death as a godfather for his son. (b) Death makes the son prosper as a doctor. (c) The son tries to cheat Death and dies. In both versions the father refuses to accept God as godfather because he observes that God favors the rich and powerful, whereas Death treats everyone equally. This impiety is rejected in the Grimms’ transcription of the German tale: “Thus spoke the man, for he did not know how wisely God apportions riches and poverty.”⁵⁷ The French version leaves the question open and goes on to suggest that cheating works very well as a way of life. The doctor makes a fortune, because Death provides him with an infallible prognostic technique. When he sees Death standing at the foot of a sick person’s bed, he knows the person will die. When Death appears at the head of the bed, the patient will recover and can be given any kind of fake medicine. In one instance, the doctor successfully predicts the death of a lord and in return receives two farms from the delighted heirs. In another, he sees Death at the foot of a princess’s bed and pivots her body around so that Death is duped. The princess survives, he marries her, and they live to a ripe and happy old age. When the German doctor tries the same stratagem, Death seizes him by the throat and hauls him off to a cave full of candles, each of which stands for a life. Seeing that his own candle has almost expired, the doctor begs to have it lengthened. But Death snuffs it out, and the doctor falls dead at his feet. The French doctor eventually comes to the same end, but he postpones it quite successfully. In one version, he asks to say a Pater before the extinction of the candle, and by leaving the prayer unfinished tricks Death into allowing him a still longer life. Death finally gets him by pretending to be a cadaver at the side of the road—a common sight in early modern Europe and one that evoked a common response: the saying of a Pater, which brings the tale to a rather unedifying end. True, the story demonstrates that no one can cheat death, at least not in the long run. But cheating gives the Frenchman an excellent short run for his money.

《魔鬼的司机》（格林童话第475号，格林100）传达了类似的寓意。法语版和德语版的结构也相同：(a) 一个贫穷的退伍士兵同意为魔鬼工作，在地狱的坩埚下添火。(b) 他违抗魔鬼的命令，没有往坩埚里看，结果发现了以前的指挥官。(c) 他带着一件魔法物品逃出了地狱，这件物品虽然外表丑陋，却能变出他余生所需的所有黄金。德语版的情节展开较为直接，但包含了一些法语版中没有的奇幻细节。魔鬼雇佣这名士兵的条件是，在七年的服务期内，他不得修剪指甲、剪头发或洗澡。士兵在坩埚里发现以前的指挥官后，便把火烧得更高；于是魔鬼原谅了他的违抗，士兵安然服役七年，期间容貌日渐丑陋。他从地狱出来时，已是蓬头垢面的斯特鲁维尔彼得模样，并按照魔鬼的吩咐自称“魔鬼的脏兮兮的兄弟”。他的服从得到了回报，魔鬼给他的那袋扫帚灰变成了金子。后来客栈老板偷走了金子，魔鬼出手相助，又将金子找了回来。最终，衣食无忧、神采奕奕的士兵娶了公主，继承了王国。

“Le Chauffeur du diable” (tale type 475, Grimm 100) conveys a similar message. It, too, has the same organization in the French and German versions: (a) A poor, discharged soldier agrees to work for the devil, stoking fires under cauldrons in hell. (b) He disobeys the devil’s order not to look inside the cauldrons and finds his former commanding officer(s). (c) He escapes from hell with a magic object, which, though nasty looking, produces all the gold he needs to live happily for the rest of his life. In the German version the plot unwinds in a straightforward manner but with fanciful details that do not exist in the French. As a condition for hiring the soldier, the devil demands that he not trim his nails, cut his hair, or bathe during the seven-year term of his service. After finding his former commanding officers in the cauldrons, the soldier stokes the fire higher; so the devil forgives him for his disobedience, and the soldier serves his seven years without further incident, growing more and more hideous in appearance. He emerges from hell looking like Struwelpeter and calling himself “the devil’s sooty brother” as the devil had commanded. His obedience is rewarded, for the sack of sweepings which the devil had given him as wages turns into gold. When an innkeeper steals it, the devil intervenes to get it restored. And in the end, well-heeled and well-scrubbed, the soldier marries a princess and inherits a kingdom.

法国版的故事则充满了诡计。魔鬼假扮成一位绅士，前来寻找厨房仆人，以此引诱士兵进入地狱。当士兵发现他以前的上尉正在锅里做饭时，他的第一反应是往火里添柴。但上尉阻止了他，告诉他这里是地狱，并提供了逃脱的办法。士兵应该假装不知道自己的真实处境，并以不喜欢这份工作为由要求释放。魔鬼会用金子诱惑他——这是个骗局，目的是引诱他伸手去拿箱子，然后箱子盖上时，他就会被斩首。士兵应该索要魔鬼的一条旧裤子作为报酬，而不是金子。这个计策奏效了；第二天晚上，当士兵到达一家客栈时，他发现裤子的口袋里装满了金子。然而，趁他熟睡之际，旅店老板娘抓住了那条神奇的裤子，尖叫着说他要强奸并杀害她——这又是另一个诡计，这次的目的是为了夺取黄金，并将士兵送上绞刑架。但魔鬼及时出现，救了他，并夺走了裤子。与此同时，士兵已经从口袋里偷走了足够的黄金，得以安享晚年，甚至在某些版本中，还娶了一位公主。他凭借着计谋，最终达到了与他的德国同伴通过辛勤工作、服从命令和自我贬低所达到的相同境界。

The French version turns on trickery. The devil lures the soldier into hell by pretending to be a gentleman in search of a servant for his kitchen. When the soldier discovers his former captain cooking in the cauldron, his first impulse is to pile new logs on the fire. But the captain stops him by revealing that they are in hell and offering advice on how to escape. The soldier should feign ignorance of his true situation and demand to be released on the grounds that he does not like the work. The devil will tempt him by offering gold—a ruse to get him to reach into a chest so that he can be beheaded when its cover slams down. Instead of gold, the soldier should demand an old pair of the devil’s breeches as payment. This strategy works; and the next evening, as he arrives at an inn, the soldier finds the pockets full of gold. While he sleeps, however, the innkeeper’s wife grabs the magic breeches and screams that he is trying to rape and murder her—another ruse, this time aimed at capturing the gold and sending the soldier to the gallows. But the devil intervenes in time to save him and to claim the breeches. And meanwhile the soldier has siphoned enough gold out of the pockets to retire happily and even, in some versions, to marry a princess. By out-tricking the tricksters, he arrives at the same point that his German counterpart reached by hard work, obedience, and self-degradation.

《无花果篮》（格林童话第570号，格林165）是另一个例子，说明如何从相同的结构中解读出不同的信息。故事如下：（a）国王承诺将女儿嫁给谁能种出最好的水果。（b）一个农家男孩善待了一位被他哥哥们无礼对待的魔法助手，赢得了比赛。（c）国王拒绝交出公主，并给这位英雄设置了一系列不可能完成的任务。（d）在助手的帮助下，英雄完成了所有任务，并在与国王的最终对峙后娶了公主。德语版本的英雄是一个心地善良的笨蛋，名叫汉斯·杜姆。他在一个充满超自然力量和奇幻道具的环境中完成了这些任务——一艘能在陆地上飞的船、一个魔法哨子、一只可怕的狮鹫、矮人、城堡和落难的少女。虽然汉斯有时表现出一些智慧，但他还是听从魔法助手的命令，并凭着自己的直觉克服了灾难，赢得了公主的芳心。

“Le Panier de figues” (tale type 570, Grimm 165) provides another example of how different messages can be construed from the same structure. It goes as follows: (a) A king promises his daughter to whoever can produce the finest fruit. (b) A peasant boy wins the contest after being kind to a magic helper whom his elder brothers had treated discourteously. (c) The king refuses to give the princess up and sets the hero a round of impossible tasks. (d) Aided by the helper, the hero performs the tasks and marries the princess after a final confrontation with the king. The hero of the German version is a good-natured numbskull, Hans Dumm. He carries out the tasks in a setting charged with supernatural forces and crowded by fanciful props—a boat that flies over land, a magic whistle, a hideous griffin, dwarfs, castles, and damsels in distress. Although he sometimes shows glimmers of intelligence, Hans overcomes disaster and wins his princess by taking orders from his magic helper and by following his nose.

他的法国搭档贝努瓦，在尔虞我诈、尔虞我诈的残酷世界里，凭借着自己的机智生存。国王像农民保卫家园一样，用尽各种计谋来保护女儿。如同德国童话故事里一样，国王坚持除非英雄能看守一群兔子，不让任何一只走失，否则绝不交出公主。贝努瓦凭借着神奇的哨子成功做到了这一点，哨子能让兔子们听到召唤就立刻赶来，无论它们看起来多么四散奔逃。但是，国王并没有像汉斯那样派贝努瓦去追捕食人狮鹫，而是用一系列计谋试图将兔子从兔群中分离出来。他伪装成农民，提出要高价购买一只兔子。贝努瓦识破了国王的诡计，并以此为契机反击。他宣布，只有能够通过考验的人，他才会把兔子交给国王。国王必须脱下裤子，接受鞭笞。国王同意了，但兔子一听到魔法哨声就跑了。王后也用了同样的计谋，结果也一样，不过在某些版本中，她还得翻跟头，露出光溜溜的屁股。然后公主必须亲吻英雄——或者，在某些情况下，还要抬起他的驴尾巴亲吻它的肛门。谁也别想从包里偷走兔子。国王依然不肯罢休。他坚持要贝诺瓦拿出三个装满真理的袋子，才肯交出女儿。众人围拢过来，贝诺瓦低声说出了他的第一个真理：“陛下，难道不是我偷袭了您的光屁股吗？”国王被套路了。他无法忍受接下来的两个真理，只好交出了公主。魔法道具也随之消失。一场真刀真枪的较量在现实世界展开，一个充满权力、骄傲和诡计的世界。弱者凭借他们唯一拥有的武器——狡诈——取得了胜利。这个故事讲述的是聪明人与聪明一半的人之间的较量：“诡计、诡计和半个诡计，”正如一位农民说书人所说^。58

His French counterpart, Benoît, lives by his wits in a rough-and-ready world of dupe or be duped. The king defends his daughter like a peasant battling for his barnyard, using one ruse after another. As in the German tale, he refuses to surrender the princess unless the hero can guard a flock of rabbits without letting any of them stray, and Benoît succeeds with the help of the magic whistle, which makes the rabbits come when they are called, no matter how hopelessly they seem to be dispersed. But instead of sending Benoît, like Hans, on a chase after a man-eating griffin, the king tries to separate rabbits from the pack by a series of stratagems. Disguised as a peasant, he offers to buy one for a high price. Benoît sees through the maneuver and uses it as an opportunity to turn the tables on the king. He will only surrender the rabbit to someone who can succeed in an ordeal, he announces. The king must drop his breeches and submit to a flogging. The king agrees but loses the rabbit as soon as it hears the magic whistle. The queen tries the same ruse and gets the same treatment, although in some versions she has to turn cartwheels, exposing her bare bottom. Then the princess has to kiss the hero—or, in some cases, to lift his donkey’s tail and kiss its anus. No one can pry a rabbit from the pack. Still the king holds out. He will not give up his daughter until Benoît produces three bags of truth. As the court gathers round, Benoît lets loose his first truth, sotto voce: “Is it not true, Sire, that I switched you on the bare behind?” The king is trapped. He cannot bear to hear the next two truths and surrenders the princess. The magic props have fallen by the side. Battle has been joined terre à terre, in a real world of power, pride, and deviousness. And the weak win with the only weapon they possess: cunning. The tale pits the clever against the clever by half: “A ruse, ruse et demi,” as one of the peasant raconteurs observes.⁵⁸

这种概括方式远不足以展现法德童话中丰富多样的主题，若对二者进行更深入的比较，便会发现更多可能性。格林童话中不乏机智的弱者逆袭的故事，而法国民间故事中也充满了奇幻色彩，尤其是在布列塔尼和阿尔萨斯-洛林地区的故事中。一些法国童话与格林童话中的对应故事几乎如出一辙。 ⁵⁹但即便考虑到例外和复杂情况，两种传统之间的差异依然呈现出一致的模式。农民故事讲述者们选取相同的主题，并赋予其独特的风格，法国人以一种方式，德国人则以另一种方式。法国童话往往写实、质朴、粗俗而滑稽，而德国童话则更倾向于超自然、诗意、异域风情和暴力。当然，文化差异不能简化为一个公式——法国人的狡猾与德国人的残忍——但这种比较可以让我们了解法国人赋予他们故事的独特语调，而他们讲述故事的方式也为我们了解他们看待世界的方式提供了线索。

That formula hardly does justice to the variety of themes that would emerge from a more thorough comparison of the French and German tales. One can certainly find clever underdogs in Grimm and magic in Le Conte populaire français, especially in the tales from Brittany and Alsace-Lorraine. A few of the French tales hardly differ at all from their counterparts in the Grimms’ collection. ⁵⁹ But allowing for exceptions and complications, the differences between the two traditions fall into consistent patterns. The peasant raconteurs took the same themes and gave them characteristic twists, the French in one way, the German in another. Where the French tales tend to be realistic, earthy, bawdy, and comical, the German veer off toward the supernatural, the poetic, the exotic, and the violent. Of course, cultural differences cannot be reduced to a formula—French craftiness versus German cruelty—but the comparisons make it possible to identify the peculiar inflection that the French gave to their stories, and their way of telling stories provides clues about their way of viewing the world.

最后再来看一组对比。如前所述，在《美丽的尤拉莉》（故事类型313）中，魔鬼的女儿做了一些会说话的面团，藏在自己的枕头下，以及她情人的枕头下。她的情人是一位退伍士兵，为了掩护他们逃跑，躲进了魔鬼的房子。魔鬼的妻子怀疑其中有蹊跷，便唠叨着让他去看看孩子们。但他只是从床上喊了几声，然后又睡着了，而面团却发出令人安心的回答，情人们趁机逃走了。在格林童话的对应故事（《最亲爱的罗兰》，编号56）中，一个女巫在一个晚上试图除掉继女时，误砍下了自己女儿的头。继女被砍下的头颅滴血在楼梯上，然后和她的情人一起逃走了，而滴落的血则回答了女巫的问题。

Consider a final set of comparisons. In “La Belle Eulalie” (tale type 313), as already mentioned, the devil’s daughter makes some talking pates and hides them under her pillow and the pillow of her lover, a discharged soldier who has sought shelter in the devil’s house, in order to cover their escape. Suspecting foul play, the devil’s wife nags at him to check on the youngsters. But he merely calls out from his bed and then snores off again, while the pates return reassuring replies and the lovers dash to safety. In the corresponding tale from the Grimms (“Der liebste Roland,” number 56), a witch mistakenly decapitates her own daughter while trying to dispatch her stepdaughter one night. The stepdaughter drips blood on the stairs from the severed head and then runs away with her lover while the drops answer the witch’s questions.

在《仙女》（故事类型480）中，乖女儿乖乖地帮井边的怪妇人除虱，结果在头发里发现了金路易，变得美丽动人；而坏女儿只发现了虱子，变得丑陋不堪。在《霍勒夫人》（格林童话24）中，乖女儿下到井下的魔法世界，成为怪妇人的管家。她抖动羽绒被，大地便会下雪。当她因辛勤劳作而获得奖赏时，金色的雨水落在她身上，使她变得美丽动人。而坏女儿则心怀不轨地干活，结果被黑色的沥青淋了一身。

The good daughter who obligingly delouses the strange woman at the well in “Les Fées” (tale type 480) finds gold louis in the hair and becomes beautiful, while the bad daughter finds only lice and turns ugly. In “Frau Holle” (Grimm 24), the good daughter descends into a magic land beneath the well and serves the strange woman as a housekeeper. When she shakes a feather quilt, she makes it snow on earth. And when she receives a reward for her good work, a shower of golden rain clings to her and she becomes beautiful. The bad daughter performs the tasks begrudgingly and is showered with black pitch.

法国版的长发公主珀西内特（故事类型310）为了与王子在塔中缠绵，放下了长发。她将王子藏匿起来，不让囚禁她的仙女发现，并设计了一系列滑稽的计谋来质疑那只不断出卖他们的宠物鹦鹉的证词。（在一个版本中，珀西内特和王子把鹦鹉的屁股缝了起来，这样它就只能叫“屁股缝了，屁股缝了”。）^这对恋人最终逃脱，但仙女把珀西内特的鼻子变成了驴鼻子，这毁了他们在宫廷中的地位，直到最后仙女心软，恢复了她的美貌。在格林童话《长发公主》（第12号）中，女巫将剪掉头发的长发公主放逐到沙漠，并强迫王子从塔上跳入荆棘丛中，使他失明，从而拆散了这对恋人。他在荒野中流浪多年，直到最后偶然遇到了长发公主，她滴在他眼中的眼泪使他重见光明。

Persinette, the French Rapunzel (tale type 310), lets down her hair so that she can make love with the prince in her tower. She hides him from the fairy who keeps her captive and devises a variety of burlesque stratagems to impugn the testimony of the pet parrot who keeps betraying them. (In one version Persinette and the prince sew up the parrot’s rear end, so it can only cry, “Ass stitched, ass stitched.”)⁶⁰ The lovers finally escape, but the fairy changes Persinette’s nose into the nose of an ass, which ruins their standing in court, until at last the fairy relents and restores her beauty. In Grimm’s “Rapunzel” (number 12), the enchantress separates the lovers by banishing Rapunzel, with her hair shorn, to a desert and by forcing the prince to leap from the tower into some thorns, which blind him. He wanders in the wilderness for years, until at last he stumbles upon Rapunzel, and her tears falling on his eyes restore his sight.

在《三个礼物》（故事类型592）中，可怜的牧羊男孩把食物分给了伪装成乞丐的仙女，得到了三个愿望：用弓箭射中任何鸟儿，用笛子让任何人跳舞，以及只要他说“阿嚏”，就让恶毒的继母放屁。很快，他就让老太太在家里到处放屁，在守夜仪式上，甚至在星期天的弥撒中也放屁。为了完成布道，神父不得不把她赶出教堂。后来，当老太太向他解释自己的问题时，神父试图哄骗男孩说出他的秘密。但狡猾的小牧羊人射中了一只鸟，让男孩去把它捡回来。当神父试图在荆棘丛中抓住鸟时，男孩吹起了笛子，迫使神父跳舞，直到他的长袍被撕成碎片，奄奄一息。男孩康复后，牧师企图以巫术罪名报复，但男孩用笛子让法庭上的众人情不自禁地跳起舞来，最终被释放。在《绞刑架上的犹太人》（格林童话110）中，主人公是一个收入微薄的仆人，他将微薄的工钱给了侏儒，作为回报，侏儒给了他一把百发百中的枪、一把能让任何人跳舞的小提琴，以及提出一个无法拒绝的请求的能力。他遇到一个犹太人，正在聆听树上鸟儿的鸣叫。他射杀了鸟儿，让犹太人去荆棘丛中把它捡回来，然后开始拉琴，琴声激昂无比，犹太人几乎被荆棘刺死，最后用一袋金子赎回了自己。犹太人为了报复，陷害仆人犯了拦路抢劫罪，判他死刑。但在即将被绞死之际，仆人提出了最后一个请求，要回他的小提琴。很快，所有人都围着绞刑架疯狂地跳起了舞。疲惫不堪的法官释放了仆人，并将犹太人绞死在了他的位置上。

After sharing his food with a fairy disguised as a beggar, the poor shepherd boy in “Les Trois Dons” (tale type 592) gets three wishes: that he can hit any bird with his bow and arrow, that he can make anyone dance with his flute, and that he can make his wicked stepmother fart whenever he says “atchoo.” Soon he has the old woman farting all over the house, at the veillée, and at mass on Sundays. The priest has to turn her out of church in order to get through his sermon. Later, when she explains her problem, he tries to trick the boy into revealing his secret. But the little shepherd, who is trickier still, shoots a bird and asks him to fetch it. When the priest tries to grab it in a thorn bush, the boy plays the flute, forcing him to dance until his robe is torn to shreds and he is ready to drop. After he has recovered, the priest seeks vengeance by an accusation of witchcraft, but the boy sets the courtroom to dancing so uncontrollably with his flute that they let him free. In “Der Jude im Dorn” (Grimm 110), the hero is an underpaid servant, who gives his poor wages to a dwarf and in return receives a gun that can hit anything, a fiddle that can make anyone dance, and the power to make one unrefusable request. He meets a Jew listening to a bird singing in a tree. He shoots the bird, tells the Jew to retrieve it from a thorn bush, and then fiddles so implacably that the Jew nearly kills himself on the thorns and buys his release with a purse of gold. The Jew retaliates by getting the servant condemned for highway robbery. But as he is about to be hanged, the servant makes a last request for his fiddle. Soon everyone is dancing wildly around the gallows. The exhausted judge sets the servant free and hangs the Jew in his place.

如果将这个故事视为法国反教权主义等同于德国反犹主义的证据，那就太片面了^。61对民间故事的比较并不能得出如此具体的结论，但它有助于我们辨识法国故事的独特风味。与德国故事不同，它们带有咸味，散发着泥土的芬芳。故事发生在一个充满人情味的世界里，放屁、除虱、在干草堆里打滚、在粪堆上翻滚，这些都表达了一个如今已不复存在的农民社会的激情、价值观、兴趣和态度。如果真是如此，我们能否更精确地解读这些故事对讲述者和听众的意义呢？我想提出两点：这些故事告诉农民世界的构成，并为他们提供了一种应对世界的策略。

It would be abusive to take this tale as evidence that anticlericalism functioned in France as the equivalent of anti-Semitism in Germany.⁶¹ The comparison of folktales will not yield such specific conclusions. But it helps one to identify the peculiar flavor of the French tales. Unlike their German counterparts, they taste of salt. They smell of the earth. They take place in an intensely human world, where farting, delousing, rolling in the hay, and tossing on the dung heap express the passions, values, interests, and attitudes of a peasant society that is now extinct. If that is the case, can one be more precise in construing what the tales might have meant to the tellers and their audiences? I would like to advance two propositions: the tales told peasants how the world was put together, and they provided a strategy for coping with it.

法国民间故事不刻意说教或灌输道德观念，却展现了世界的残酷与危险。虽然大多数故事并非面向儿童，但它们往往具有警示意义。它们在追逐财富的道路上竖起警示牌：“危险！”“路已尽！”“慢点！”“停！”诚然，有些故事传递着积极的信息，例如慷慨、诚实和勇气终将获得回报。但它们并不鼓励人们相信爱仇敌和以德报怨的有效性。相反，它们表明，尽管与乞丐分享面包值得称赞，但你不能信任路上遇到的每一个人。有些陌生人可能会变成王子或善良的仙女，但也可能是狼或女巫，而你根本无法分辨他们。让·德·洛尔（故事类型 301）在寻找财富的过程中遇到的魔法助手，拥有与《三条腰带的巫师》（故事类型 329）和《无与伦比的船》（故事类型 513）中出现的魔法助手一样强大的力量。但在故事的关键时刻，当其他人救下他时，他们却试图谋杀这位英雄。

Without preaching or drawing morals, French folktales demonstrate that the world is harsh and dangerous. Although most were not directed toward children, they tend to be cautionary. They erect warning signs around the seeking of fortune: “Danger!” “Road out!” “Go slow!” “Stop!” True, some have a positive message. They show that generosity, honesty, and courage win rewards. But they do not inspire much confidence in the effectiveness of loving enemies and turning the other cheek. Instead, they demonstrate that laudable as it may be to share your bread with beggars, you cannot trust everyone you meet along the road. Some strangers may turn into princes and good fairies; but others may be wolves and witches, and there is no sure way to tell them apart. The magic helpers whom Jean de l’Ours (tale type 301) picks up while seeking his fortune have the same Gargantuan powers as those in “Le Sorcier aux trois ceintures” (tale type 329) and “Le Navire sans pareil” (tale type 513). But they try to murder the hero at the point in the plot where the others save him.

然而，尽管某些民间故事人物的行为或许具有教化意义，但他们所处的世界却似乎随意且缺乏道德。在《两个驼背》（故事类型503）中，一个驼背遇到一群女巫边唱边跳：“星期一、星期二、星期三。星期一、星期二、星期三。”他加入她们，并在歌中加上了“还有星期四”。女巫们对他的创新感到欣喜，便奖励他，让他不再驼背。第二个驼背也尝试了同样的方法，加上了“还有星期五”。“这不行，”一个女巫说。“完全不行，”另一个说。她们惩罚他，让他也变成第一个驼背的样子。双倍的驼背让他无法忍受村民的嘲笑，不到一年就死了。在这样的世界里，既没有韵律也没有道理。灾难总是突如其来。就像黑死病一样，它无法预测，也无法解释，人们只能默默承受。在已记录的35个《小红帽》版本中，超过一半的结局都和前面提到的版本一样，以狼吞噬小红帽告终。她并没有做错任何事，不应该遭受这样的命运；因为在民间传说中，与佩罗和格林童话不同，她并没有违背母亲的意愿，也没有忽视周遭世界中隐含的道德准则。她只是自投罗网，走向了死神的魔爪。真正令这些故事如此动人的，并非十八世纪之后常见的那些皆大欢喜的结局，而是灾难那难以捉摸、无情无情的本质。

However edifying some folktale characters may be in their behavior, they inhabit a world that seems arbitrary and amoral. In “Les Deux Bossus” (tale type 503), a hunchback comes upon a band of witches dancing and singing, “Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.” He joins the group and adds “and Thursday” to their song. Delighted with the innovation, they reward him by removing his deformity. A second hunchback tries the same device, adding, “and Friday.” “That doesn’t go,” says one of the witches. “Not at all,” says another. They punish him by inflicting him with the first hunchback. Doubly deformed, he cannot bear the taunts of the village and dies within the year. There is neither rhyme nor reason in such a universe. Disaster strikes fortuitously. Like the Black Death, it cannot be predicted or explained. it must simply be endured. More than half of the thirty-five recorded versions of “Little Red Riding Hood” end like the version recounted earlier, with the wolf devouring the girl. She had done nothing to deserve such a fate; for in the peasant tales, unlike those of Perrault and the Grimms, she did not disobey her mother or fail to read the signs of an implicit moral order written in the world around her. She simply walked into the jaws of death. It is the inscrutable, inexorable character of calamity that makes the tales so moving, not the happy endings that they frequently acquired after the eighteenth century.

由于世间并无普遍意义上的道德准则，善行并不能决定在村庄或旅途中的成败，至少在法国童话中并非如此。在法国童话中，狡诈取代了德国童话中的虔诚。诚然，英雄常常因善行而赢得魔法助手，但他最终赢得公主的却是智慧。有时，他甚至需要做出一些不道德的行为才能得到公主。在《忠仆》（故事类型516）中，英雄之所以能带着公主逃脱，正是因为他拒绝救助一个溺水的乞丐。同样，在《不愿死去的人》（故事类型470B）中，他最终被死神抓住，是因为他停下来帮助一个陷在泥潭里的可怜的马车夫。在某些版本的《魔鬼司机》（故事类型475）中，主人公（可以是女仆，也可以是退伍军人）只有不断说谎才能躲过危险。一旦说出真相，就会招致毁灭。这些故事并非提倡不道德，而是削弱了“美德必有回报”或“生活可以遵循除基本不信任之外的任何原则”的观念。

As no discernible morality governs the world in general, good behavior does not determine success in the village or on the road, at least not in the French tales, where cunning takes the place of the pietism in the German. True, the hero often wins a magic helper by a good deed, but he gets the princess by using his wits. And sometimes he cannot get her without performing unethical acts. The hero in “Le Fidèle Serviteur” (tale type 516) escapes with the princess only because he refuses to help a beggar drowning in a lake. Similarly, in “L’Homme qui ne voulait pas mourir” (tale type 470B), he is finally caught by Death because he stops to help a poor wagon driver who is stuck in the mud. And in some versions of “Le Chauffeur du diable” (tale type 475) the hero wards off danger only as long as he or she (the protagonist can be a servant girl as well as a discharged soldier) can maintain a string of lies. As soon as he tells the truth, he is undone. The tales do not advocate immorality, but they undercut the notion that virtue will be rewarded or that life can be conducted according to any principle other than basic mistrust.

这些假设构成了故事中乡村生活丑恶景象的根源。邻居们被认为充满敌意（故事类型162），甚至可能是女巫（故事类型709）。无论你多么贫穷，他们都会窥探你的隐私，偷窃你的花园（故事类型330）。你绝不应该在他们面前谈论你的私事，也不应该让他们知道你通过某种魔法获得了意外之财，因为如果他们自己没能偷到，他们就会诬陷你是小偷（故事类型563）。在《玩偶》（故事类型571C）中，一个头脑简单的孤儿女孩在得到一个神奇的玩偶后，并没有遵守这些基本规则。每当她说“呸，呸，我的小布娃娃”时，玩偶就会吐出金子。不久之后，她买了几只鸡和一头牛，并邀请邻居们来家里做客。其中一个邻居假装在火炉旁睡着了，趁女孩上床睡觉后，带着玩偶逃走了。但当他念出咒语时，那东西却在他身上拉了一身真屎。于是他把它扔到粪堆上。后来有一天，当他自己拉屎的时候，那东西突然伸出手咬了他一口。他怎么也弄不掉它，直到那个女孩出现，拿回了属于它的东西，从此以后，他一直生活在不信任之中。

Those assumptions underlie the nastiness of village life as it appears in the tales. Neighbors are presumed to be hostile (tale type 162) and may be witches (tale type 709). They spy on you and rob your garden, no matter how poor you may be (tale type 330). You should never discuss your affairs in front of them or let them know in case you acquire sudden wealth by some stroke of magic, for they will denounce you as a thief if they fail to steal it themselves (tale type 563). In “La Poupée” (tale type 571C), a simple-minded orphan girl fails to observe these basic rules after receiving a magic doll, which excretes gold whenever she says, “Crap, crap, my little rag doll.” Before long she has bought several chickens and a cow and invites the neighbors in. One of them pretends to fall asleep by the fire and runs off with the doll as soon as the girl goes to bed. But when he says the magic words, it craps real crap all over him. So he throws it on the dung heap. Then, one day when he is doing some crapping of his own, it reaches up and bites him. He cannot pry it loose from his derrière until the girl arrives, reclaims her property, and lives mistrustfully ever after.

如果世界残酷，村庄肮脏，人间恶棍横行，我们该怎么办？这些故事并没有给出明确的答案，但它们印证了那句古老的法国谚语：“人必须与狼群一起嚎叫。” ⁶²恶棍行径贯穿了整个法国故事集，尽管它通常以较为温和、更讨喜的诡计形式出现。当然，各地民间传说中都存在诡计多端的角色，尤其是在平原印第安人的故事和美国奴隶的“兔兄弟”故事中。 ⁶³但他们在法国传统中似乎尤为盛行。正如上文所述，每当一个法国故事和一个德国故事遵循相同的模式时，德国故事往往会转向神秘、超自然和暴力，而法国故事则直奔村庄，让英雄得以充分发挥其诡计才能。诚然，这位英雄与所有欧洲民间故事中常见的弱者并无二致。他或她可能是幼子、继女、弃儿、穷牧羊人、低薪农场工人、受压迫的仆人、巫师学徒，或者像汤姆·拇指一样的人物。但这件看似普通的布衣却带有法式风情，尤其当故事讲述者将它披在那些深受喜爱的角色身上时，比如精力充沛的铁匠学徒小让、机智的裁缝卡迪欧，以及坚韧而又心灰意冷的士兵拉拉梅，他凭借虚张声势和勇气一路披荆斩棘地经历了许多故事，还有聪明的年轻新兵皮佩特，以及其他众多人物——小路易、让·勒·泰涅、法国小伙、美丽的尤拉莉、皮钦-皮肖、帕尔、博诺姆·米塞雷。有时，这些名字本身就暗示了主人公凭借机智和狡诈度过难关的特质；因此，《小富翁》（Le Petit Fûteux）、《菲农-菲内特》（Finon-Finette）、《帕拉芬》（Parlafine）和《骗子诡计》（Le Ruse Voleur）等作品，在回顾中似乎构成了一种理想类型：小人物凭借智胜大人物而获得成功。

If the world is cruel, the village nasty, and mankind infested with rogues, what is one to do? The tales do not give an explicit answer, but they illustrate the aptness of the ancient French proverb, “One must howl with the wolves.”⁶² Roguery runs through the whole corpus of French tales, though it often takes the milder and more agreeable form of tricksterism. Of course, tricksters exist in folklore everywhere, notably in the tales of the Plains Indians and in the Brer’ Rabbit stories of American slaves.⁶³ But they seem especially prevalent in the French tradition. As shown above, whenever a French and a German tale follow the same pattern, the German veers off in the direction of the mysterious, the supernatural, and the violent, while the French steers straight for the village, where the hero can give full play to his talent for intrigue. True, the hero belongs to the same species of underdog that one meets in all European folktales. He or she will be a younger son, a stepdaughter, an abandoned child, a poor shepherd, an underpaid farm hand, an oppressed servant, a sorcerer’s apprentice, or a Tom Thumb. But this common cloth has a French cut to it, particularly when the raconteur drapes it over favorite characters like Petit Jean, the feisty blacksmith’s apprentice; Cadiou, the quick-witted tailor; and La Ramée, the tough and disillusioned soldier, who bluffs and braves his way through many tales, along with Pipette, the clever young recruit, and a host of others—Petit-Louis, Jean le Teigneux, Fench Coz, Belle Eulalie, Pitchin-Pitchot, Parle, Bonhomme Misère. Sometimes the names themselves suggest the qualities of wit and duplicity that carry the hero through his trials; thus Le Petit Fûteux, Finon-Finette, Parlafine, and Le Ruse Voleur. When passed in review, they seem to constitute an ideal type, the little guy who gets ahead by outwitting the big.

狡猾的英雄与愚笨的反面形象——傻瓜——形成鲜明对比。在英语故事中，傻瓜西蒙带来了许多天真无邪的乐趣。在德语故事中，汉斯·杜姆是一个讨人喜欢的笨蛋，他凭借善良的笨拙和魔法助手的帮助最终取得了胜利。法语故事对村里的傻瓜或任何形式的愚蠢都毫不留情，包括那些未能当场吃掉猎物的狼和食人魔（故事类型112D和162）。愚笨的人代表着狡猾的反面；他们是愚昧之罪的化身，而愚昧是一种致命的罪过，因为在一个骗子横行的世界里，天真无知只会招致灾难。因此，法国童话故事中的傻瓜英雄都是装傻充愣的，就像小拇指和克朗普埃斯（故事类型327和569）一样，他们假装愚笨，以便更好地操纵一个残酷却又轻信的世界。在法国童话的某些版本中，小红帽——没有戴帽子——也运用了同样的策略，最终得以幸存。“奶奶，我要方便一下，”她被狼抓住时说道。“在床上解决吧，亲爱的，”狼回答。但女孩坚持要出去，于是狼允许她用绳子绑着出去。女孩把绳子系在树上就跑了，狼拉着绳子，失去了耐心，喊道：“你在干什么，拉绳子吗？” ⁶⁴这个故事以典型的高卢风格，讲述了一个骗子如何成长的故事。从天真无邪到装傻充愣，小红帽加入了拇指汤姆和穿靴子的猫的行列。

The trickster heroes stand out against a negative ideal, the numbskull. In the English tales, Simple Simon provides a good deal of innocent amusement. In the German, Hans Dumm is a likeable lout, who comes out on top by good-natured bumbling and help from magic auxiliaries. The French tales show no sympathy for village idiots or for stupidity in any form, including that of the wolves and ogres who fail to eat their victims on the spot (tale types 112D and 162). Numbskulls represent the antithesis of tricksterism; they epitomize the sin of simplicity, a deadly sin, because naïveté in a world of confidence men is an invitation to disaster. The numbskull heroes of the French tales are therefore false numbskulls, like Petit Poucet and Crampouès (tale types 327 and 569), who pretend to be dumb, all the better to succeed in manipulating a cruel but credulous world. Little Red Riding Hood—without the riding hood—uses the same strategy in the versions of the French tale where she escapes alive. “I have to relieve myself, Grandmother,” she says as the wolf clutches her. “Do it here in bed, my dear,” the wolf replies. But the girl insists, so the wolf permits her to go outside, tied to a rope. The girl attaches the rope to a tree and runs away, as the wolf tugs on it and calls out, having lost patience with waiting, “What are you doing, shitting coils of rope?”⁶⁴ In true, Gaulois fashion, the tale recounts the education of a trickster. Graduating from a state of innocence to one of fake naïveté, Little Red Riding Hood joins the company of Tom Thumb and Puss ’n Boots.

这些人物的共同点不仅在于他们的狡诈，还在于他们的弱点；而他们的对手则以力量和愚蠢著称。诡计总是将弱者与强者对立起来，将穷人与富人对立起来，将弱势群体与权贵对立起来。通过这种方式构建故事，并且不进行明确的社会评论，口头传统为农民提供了一种在旧制度下应对敌人的策略。再次强调，弱者战胜强者的主题并非什么新鲜事。它可以追溯到尤利西斯与独眼巨人的斗争和大卫击败歌利亚的故事，并在德国童话故事中“聪慧少女”的形象中得到充分体现。65^重要的不是主题的新颖性，而是它的意义——它如何融入叙事框架并在故事讲述中呈现出来。当法国的弱者战胜权贵时，他们以一种朴实无华的方式和朴实无华的背景实现了这一点。即使要爬上豆茎才能到达，他们也不会在虚无缥缈的国度里屠杀巨人。《熊的让》（故事类型301）中的巨人是住在普通房子里的富农，就像任何一个^富裕的农民一样。《说话伯爵》（故事类型328）中的巨人是一只长得过大的乡村公鸡，当英雄到来并戏弄他时，它^正“和妻子女儿一起吃晚饭” 。《不忠的妹妹》（故事类型315）中的巨人是一个讨厌的磨坊主；《灵巧的猎人》（故事类型304）中的巨人是普通的强盗；《野蛮人》（故事类型502）和《小磨坊主》（故事类型317）中的巨人是暴虐的地主，英雄在一次关于放牧权的争执后杀死了他们。不难想象，他们才是真正的暴君——强盗、磨坊主、庄园管家和庄园主——他们让农民在自己的村庄里过着悲惨的生活。

These characters have in common not merely cunning but weakness, and their adversaries are distinguished by strength as well as stupidity. Tricksterism always pits the little against the big, the poor against the rich, the underprivileged against the powerful. By structuring stories in this way, and without making explicit social comment, the oral tradition provided the peasants with a strategy for coping with their enemies under the Old Regime. Again, it should be stressed that there was nothing new or unusual about the theme of the weak outwitting the strong. It goes back to Ulysses’s struggle against Cyclops and David’s felling of Goliath, and it stands out strongly in the “clever maiden” motif of the German tales.⁶⁵ What matters is not the novelty of the theme but its significance—the way it fits into a narrative framework and takes shape in the telling of a tale. When the French underdogs turn the tables on the high and mighty, they do so in an earthy manner and a down-to-earth setting. They do not slay giants in a never-never land, even if they have to climb beanstalks to reach them. The giant in “Jean de l‘Ours” (tale type 301) is le bourgeois de la maison,⁶⁶ living in an ordinary house like that of any wealthy farmer. The giant in “Le Conte de Parle” (tale type 328) is an overgrown coq du village “having supper with his wife and daughter” ⁶⁷ when the hero arrives to bamboozle him. The giant in “La Soeur infidèle” (tale type 315) is a nasty miller; those in “Le Chasseur adroit” (tale type 304) are common bandits; those in “L’Homme sauvage” (tale type 502) and “Le Petit Forgeron” (tale type 317) are tyrannical landlords, whom the hero fells after a dispute over grazing rights. It required no great leap of the imagination to see them as the actual tyrants—the bandits, millers, estate stewards, and lords of the manor—who made the peasants’ lives miserable within their own villages.

有些故事明确地展现了这种联系。《摩羯座》（故事类型571）借用了格林童话《金鹅》（编号64）的主题，并将其转化为对乡村社会中富人和权贵的滑稽讽刺。一个贫穷的铁匠被他的牧师戴了绿帽子，还受到当地领主的压迫。在牧师的唆使下，领主命令铁匠执行不可能完成的任务，以便在牧师与妻子幽会时，铁匠可以腾出手来。在仙女的帮助下，铁匠成功完成了两次任务。但第三次，领主命令他去完成一个“摩羯座”的任务，而铁匠甚至不知道那是什么。仙女指示他在阁楼的地板上钻一个洞，看到什么就喊“抓紧了！”。他首先看到的是一个女仆，她用牙齿叼着睡衣，正在从私处捉跳蚤。“抓紧了！”就在这时，女主人叫人去拿便壶，好让牧师方便。女孩倒退着走进去，遮住自己的裸体，把便壶递给女主人，两人一起拿着便壶给牧师方便，这时又一声“抓紧了！”把三人紧紧地粘在了一起。第二天早上，铁匠用鞭子把三人赶出屋子，然后又适时地喊了一声“抓紧了！”，把一群村民绑在了他们身上。队伍来到领主家门口时，铁匠喊道：“先生，您的摩羯座来了！”领主给了他钱，所有人都被释放了。

Some of the tales make the connection explicit. “Le Capricorne” (tale type 571) takes the theme of “The Golden Goose” as it is found in the Grimms (number 64) and transforms it into a burlesque indictment of the rich and the powerful in village society. A poor blacksmith is being cuckolded by his priest and tyrannized by the local seigneur. At the priest’s instigation, the seigneur orders the smith to execute impossible tasks, which will keep him out of the way while the priest is occupied with his wife. The smith succeeds in the tasks twice, thanks to the help of a fairy. But on the third time, the seigneur orders a “capricorn,” and the smith does not even know what it is. The fairy directs him to bore a hole in his attic floor and to call out “hold tight!” at whatever he sees. First he sees the servant girl with her nightdress between her teeth picking fleas from her private parts. The “hold tight!” freezes her in that position, just as her mistress calls for the chamber pot so that the priest can relieve himself. Walking in backward in order to hide her nudity, the girl presents the pot to the mistress, and both hold it for the priest just as another “hold tight!” sticks all three of them together. In the morning, the smith drives the trio out of the house with a whip and, by a series of well-timed “hold tights!,” attaches a whole parade of village characters to them. When the procession arrives at the seigneur’s residence, the smith calls out, “Here is your capricorn, Monsieur.” The seigneur pays him off and everyone is released.

雅各宾派或许能把这个故事讲得如同火药味般浓烈。然而，无论它对特权阶级多么不屑一顾，也仅限于竖中指和颠倒黑白。主人公满足于羞辱他人，他并不梦想革命。在嘲弄了地方官员之后，他让他们重回原位，而自己则回到了原位，尽管并不快乐。在其他一些接近社会评论的故事中，反抗并没有让主人公走得更远。当让·勒·泰涅（故事类型314）战胜国王和两位傲慢的王子时，他让他们吃下农民的饭菜——煮土豆和黑面包；然后，他赢得了公主的芳心，并登上了王位，继承了王位。拉·拉梅则通过一场类似跳蚤马戏团的比赛来逗公主开心，最终赢得了她的芳心（故事类型559）。国王无法忍受娶个乞丐做女婿，于是反悔了，试图强迫她嫁给一个朝臣。最终，他们决定让她与两个觐见者同寝，然后从中选出自己心仪的那一位。拉梅在这场第二次较量中获胜，他将一只跳蚤放进了对手的肛门。

A Jacobin might be able to tell that story in such a way as to make it smell of gunpowder. But however little respect it shows for the privileged orders, it does not go beyond the bounds of nose thumbing and table turning. The hero is satisfied with exacting humiliation; he does not dream of revolution. Having ridiculed the local authorities, he leaves them to resume their places while he resumes his, unhappy as it is. Defiance does not take the heroes any farther in the other tales that venture close to social comment. When Jean le Teigneux (tale type 314) gets the upper hand on a king and two haughty princes, he makes them eat a peasant’s meal of boiled potatoes and black bread; then, having won the princess, he takes his rightful place as heir to the throne. La Ramée wins his princess by using a kind of flea circus in a contest to make her laugh (tale type 559). Unable to bear the idea of a beggar for a son-in-law, the king goes back on his word and tries to force a courtier on her instead. Finally, it is decided that she will go to bed with both pretenders and choose the one she prefers. La Ramée wins this second contest by dispatching a flea into his rival’s anus.

这种粗俗的笑话或许能在十八世纪的炉火旁博得几声捧腹大笑，但它真的能激起农民们推翻社会秩序的强烈决心吗？我对此表示怀疑。粗俗与革命、高卢式的喧嚣与雅克利式 的叛逆之间，有着天壤之别。在另一个关于落魄男孩邂逅富家女的永恒主题的变奏中，《基奥-让如何向雅克琳求婚》（故事类型593）讲述了贫穷的农民基奥-让向心上人的父亲求婚，却被赶出了家门。这位富家子弟是旧制度时期村庄里，尤其是皮卡第地区（这个故事于1881年在此地收集）的典型富农，他们凌驾于穷人之上。基奥-让求助于当地的女巫，得到了一把神奇的羊粪，并把它藏在了富农家炉火的灰烬下。女儿试图重新生火，对着火堆吹了口气，结果“噗！”一声，她放了个响亮的屁。母亲、父亲，最后连牧师也都遭遇了同样的情况。牧师一边洒着圣水，一边喃喃念着拉丁语驱魔咒，同时还放了一连串惊天动地的屁。放屁声此起彼伏——你可以想象这位农民说书人一边即兴发挥，一边用一种布朗克斯式的欢呼声来强调他每说几个字——以至于家里的生活变得无法忍受。基奥特-让承诺，如果他们放弃那个女孩，他就救他们；于是，他偷偷地移走了羊粪，赢得了他的杰奎琳。

The bawdiness may have produced some belly laughs around eighteenth-century hearths, but did it knot the peasant viscera into a gutlike determination to overthrow the social order? I doubt it. A considerable distance separates ribaldry from revolution, gauloiserie from jacquerie. In another variation on the eternal theme of underdog boy meets overprivileged girl, “Comment Kiot-Jean épousa Jacqueline” (tale type 593), the poor peasant, Kiot-Jean, is thrown out of the house when he submits his proposal to his true love’s father, a prototypical fermier or wealthy peasant, who lorded it over the poor in the villages of the Old Regime and especially in Picardy, where this story was collected in 1881. Kiot-Jean consults a local witch and receives a handful of magic goat dung, which he hides under the ashes of the wealthy peasant’s hearth. Trying to revive the fire, the daughter blows on it, and “Poop! ” she lets out an enormous fart. The same thing happens to the mother, the father, and finally the priest, who emits a spectacular string of farts while sprinkling holy water and mumbling Latin exorcisms. The farting continues at such a rate—and one should imagine the peasant raconteur punctuating every few words of his improvised dialogue with a kind of Bronx cheer—that life becomes impossible in the household. Kiot-Jean promises to deliver them if they will give up the girl; and so he wins his Jacqueline after surreptitiously removing the goat dung.

毫无疑问，农民们在幻想中智胜富人和权贵，并从中获得某种满足感，正如他们在日常生活中试图通过诉讼、逃避庄园税款和偷猎等手段来智胜他们一样。当弱者在《三个女仆》（故事类型501）中将自己不值一提的女儿嫁给国王，在《无花果篮》（故事类型570）中鞭打国王，在《酒馆的侍童》（故事类型461）中哄骗国王充当魔鬼的仆人划船，以及在《大齿》（故事类型562）中让国王坐在城堡屋顶上直到交出公主时，他们或许会发出赞许的笑声。然而，在这样的幻想中寻找共和主义的萌芽是徒劳的。梦想着通过迎娶公主来戏弄国王，这很难挑战旧制度的道德基础。

No doubt the peasants derived some satisfaction from outwitting the rich and powerful in their fantasies as they tried to outwit them in everyday life, by lawsuits, cheating on manorial dues, and poaching. They probably laughed approvingly when the underdog dumped his worthless daughter on the king in “Les Trois Fileuses” (tale type 501), when he whipped the king in “Le Panier de figues” (tale type 570), tricked him into rowing the boat as a servant of the devil in “Le Garçon de chez la bucheronne” (tale type 461), and made him sit on the peak of his castle roof until he surrendered the princess in “La Grande Dent” (tale type 562). But it would be vain to search in such fantasies for the germ of republicanism. To dream of confounding a king by marrying a princess was hardly to challenge the moral basis of the Old Regime.

如果将这些故事视为扭转乾坤的幻想，它们似乎着重描绘了羞辱的主题。狡猾的弱者通过取笑强大的压迫者，最好是用一些粗俗的计谋，博得众人哄堂大笑，从而将其戏弄。他甚至会揭穿国王的丑陋面子，让他颜面尽失。然而，笑声，即使是拉伯雷式的笑声，也是有限度的。一旦笑声消散，局势便会逆转；正如历法中从四旬斋到狂欢节的交替，旧秩序最终会重新掌控狂欢者。诡计是一种控制手段。它允许弱者利用上级的虚荣和愚蠢，攫取一些微弱的优势。但诡计者是在体制内运作，利用体制的弱点为自己谋利，最终反而巩固了体制。此外，他总能遇到比自己更狡猾的人，即使在富人和权贵之中。被戏弄的诡计者则证明了期待最终胜利的虚妄。

Taken as fantasies of table turning, the tales seem to dwell on the theme of humiliation. The clever weakling makes a fool of the strong oppressor by raising a chorus of laughter at his expense, preferably by some bawdy stratagem. He forces the king to lose face by exposing his backside. But laughter, even Rabelaisian laughter, has limits. Once it subsides, the tables turn back again; and as in the succession of Lent to Carnival in the unfolding of the calendar year, the old order regains its hold on the revelers. Tricksterism is a kind of holding operation. It permits the underdog to grasp some marginal advantage by playing on the vanity and stupidity of his superiors. But the trickster works within the system, turning its weak points to his advantage and therefore ultimately confirming it. Moreover, he may always meet someone trickier than himself, even in the ranks of the rich and powerful. The out-tricked trickster demonstrates the vanity of expecting a final victory.

归根结底，骗术体现的是一种看待世界的态度，而非潜在的激进主义倾向。它提供了一种应对残酷社会的方式，而非推翻社会的方案。不妨看看最后一个故事《魔鬼与铁匠元帅》（故事类型330），这是所有故事中最狡猾的故事之一。一个铁匠无法抗拒地给每个敲门的乞丐提供食物和住所，尽管他“毫无宗教信仰”。 ⁶⁸不久，他自己也沦为乞丐，但他通过将灵魂出卖给魔鬼，换取了七年在铁匠铺摆脱贫困的权利，从而摆脱了困境。在他恢复了以往慷慨大方的习惯之后，耶稣和圣彼得乔装成乞丐来拜访他。铁匠款待他们，让他们饱餐一顿，穿上干净的衣服，睡在舒适的床上。作为回报，耶稣满足了他三个愿望。圣彼得劝他许愿进入天堂，但他却许下了种种不堪入目的愿望，这些愿望在不同的版本中各有不同：他希望自己能饱餐一顿（通常是饼干、香肠和大量的葡萄酒），希望自己的扑克牌永远为他所用，希望自己的小提琴能让任何人翩翩起舞，希望自己的麻袋能装满任何他想要的东西，而且在大多数情况下，任何坐在他长凳上的人都会被困住。七年期满后，当魔鬼的使者前来索要他时，铁匠像往常一样热情款待，然后把他困在长凳上，直到他同意再宽限七年。七年期满后，他又许愿让下一个魔鬼使者进入麻袋，然后把他摔在铁砧上，直到他再同意宽限七年。最后，铁匠同意下地狱，但惊恐万分的魔鬼们拒绝接纳他，或者他通过打牌赢了出来。他率领着一群堕落的灵魂——这些灵魂是他从魔鬼的赌桌上赢来的——来到天堂门口。圣彼得因为他的不敬而拒绝接纳他。但铁匠拿出小提琴，让彼得跳舞，直到他心软为止；否则，他就把麻袋扔过门，许愿让自己进去。在一些版本中，他与天使们玩牌，一路晋升，从角落到火炉旁，再到椅子上，最终来到天父的身边。毋庸置疑，天堂的等级制度如同路易十四的宫廷一般森严，而且你可以通过欺骗进入其中。欺骗是一种非常有效的生存策略。事实上，对于那些必须接受现实并尽力而为的“小人物”来说，这是他们唯一的选择。与其为救赎和社会秩序的公平而忧虑，不如像铁匠那样生活，吃饱穿暖。与德语版本（格林 81）不同，这则法国故事充满了虔诚，几乎没有诡计，它将骗子描绘成一种社会类型，并暗示骗术可以作为一种生活方式——或者说，在一个残酷无常的世界里，骗术可以作为一种生活方式。

Ultimately then, tricksterism expressed an orientation to the world rather than a latent strain of radicalism. It provided a way of coping with a harsh society instead of a formula for overthrowing it. Consider a final tale, “Le Diable et le maréchal ferrant” (tale type 330), one of the trickiest in the repertory. A blacksmith cannot resist giving food and shelter to every beggar who knocks at the door, although he “has no more religion than a dog.”⁶⁸ Soon he is reduced to beggary himself, but he escapes from it by selling his soul to the devil in return for seven years of freedom from poverty back at the smithy. After he has resumed his old habit of careless generosity, Jesus and Saint Peter call on him, disguised as beggars. The smith gives them a good meal, clean clothes, and a fresh bed. In return Jesus grants him three wishes. Saint Peter advises him to wish for paradise, but instead he asks for unedifying things, which vary according to different versions of the tale: that he can have a good meal (the usual fare: biscuits, sausage, and plenty of wine), that his pack of cards will always win for him, that his fiddle will make anyone dance, that his sack will be filled with anything he wishes, and in most cases that anyone who sits on his bench will remain stuck. When the devil’s messenger comes to claim him at the end of the seven years, the smith offers hospitality as usual and then keeps him stuck to the bench until he grants a reprieve of seven years. Once they have elapsed, he wishes the next emissary from the devil into the sack and then pounds him on the anvil until he gives up another seven years. Finally, the smith agrees to go to hell, but the terrified devils refuse to take him in, or alternatively he wins his way out by playing at cards. Leading a troop of the damned—souls that he has won at the devil’s gambling table—he presents himself at the gates to heaven. Saint Peter will not have him because of his impiety. But the smith takes out his fiddle and makes Peter dance until he relents, or else tosses his sack over the gate and wishes himself inside. Then, in some versions, he plays cards with the angels and wins his way up the celestial hierarchy: from a corner, to a place by the fire, to a seat on a chair, and finally a position close to God the Father. It goes without saying that heaven will be as stratified as the court of Louis XIV and that you can cheat your way into it. Cheating serves very well as a strategy for living. Indeed, it is the only strategy available to the “little people,” who must take things as they are and make the most of them. Better to live like the smith, and to keep the belly full, than to worry about salvation and the equity of the social order. Unlike the German version (Grimm 81), which is full of piety and nearly empty of tricks, the French tale celebrates the trickster as a social type and suggests that tricksterism will work quite well as a way of life—or as well as anything in a cruel and capricious world.

这些故事的寓意在法国已演变成谚语——对于盎格鲁-撒克逊人来说，这是一种非常法式的谚语表达方式：⁶⁹

The moral of these stories has passed into proverbial wisdom in France—a very French kind of proverbializing to the Anglo-Saxon ear:⁶⁹

这些农民说书人并非以这种方式进行明确的道德说教。他们只是讲述故事。但这些故事逐渐融入了构成“法国性”的普遍意象、谚语和风格之中。如今，“法国性”似乎是一个模糊不清的概念，它散发着类似“民族精神”（Volksgeist）的气息，而自20世纪30年代民族志被种族主义污染以来，“民族精神”就已蒙上了污名。然而，即使一个概念模糊不清，甚至在过去曾被滥用，它仍然可能是有效的。“法国性”是存在的。正如谚语翻译的生硬之处所暗示的那样，它是一种独特的文化风格；它传达了一种特定的世界观——一种生活艰辛、最好不要对同胞的无私抱有任何幻想、头脑清醒和机智敏捷对于保护你从周围环境中所能获取的微薄利益至关重要、以及道德上的矫揉造作毫无用处的感受。“法国性”造就了一种反讽式的超脱。它往往带有消极和迷茫的色彩。与盎格鲁-撒克逊的对立面——新教伦理不同，它并不提供征服世界的公式。它是一种防御策略，非常适合受压迫的农民或被占领的国家。时至今日，它仍然出现在一些口语交流中，例如：Comment vas-tu?（“你好吗？”）Je me défends.（“我自卫。”）

The peasant raconteurs did not moralize explicitly in this fashion. They simply told tales. But the tales became absorbed into the general stock of images, sayings, and stylizations that constitute Frenchness. Now, “Frenchness” may seem to be an intolerably vague idea, and it smells of related notions like Volksgeist that have acquired a bad odor since ethnography became polluted with racism in the 1930s. Nonetheless, an idea may be valid even if it is vague and has been abused in the past. Frenchness exists. As the awkwardness of the proverbs’ translations suggests, it is a distinct cultural style; and it conveys a particular view of the world—a sense that life is hard, that you had better not have any illusions about selflessness in your fellow men, that clear-headedness and quick wit are necessary to protect what little you can extract from your surroundings, and that moral nicety will get you nowhere. Frenchness makes for ironic detachment. It tends to be negative and disabused. Unlike its Anglo-Saxon opposite, the Protestant ethic, it offers no formula for conquering the world. It is a defense strategy, well suited to an oppressed peasantry or an occupied country. It still speaks today in colloquial exchanges like: Comment vas-tu? (“How are you?”) Je me défends. (“I defend myself.”)

这种常见的货币是如何铸造的？无人知晓，但佩罗的例子表明，这是一个复杂的过程。70^乍一看，佩罗似乎是最不可能对民间故事感兴趣的人。作为一位宫廷侍臣，一位自觉的“现代派”，以及科尔贝和路易十四专制文化政策的制定者，他对农民及其古老的文化毫无同情。然而，他却从口头传统中汲取灵感，将其改编成适合沙龙的版本，并调整语调以迎合见识广的听众。那些关于针线小径和吃掉奶奶的荒诞情节，在《小红帽》中都被删去了。尽管如此，这个故事仍然保留了其大部分原有的力量。与奥诺瓦夫人、穆拉夫人以及路易十四时期其他引领童话热潮的人不同，佩罗没有偏离原著的故事情节，也没有用华丽的细节破坏口头版本的质朴和简洁。他就像 是自己圈子里的“故事讲述者”，仿佛是路易斯·库托尔泽版的亚马逊和新几内亚篝火旁的说书人。荷马可能在26个世纪前就以类似的方式改编过他的作品；纪德和加缪在两个世纪后也做了同样的事情。

How was this common coinage minted? No one can say, but the case of Perrault demonstrates that it was a complex process.⁷⁰ On the face of it, Perrault would seem to be the last person likely to take an interest in folk tales. A courtier, self-conscious “moderne,” and architect of the authoritarian cultural policies of Colbert and Louis XIV, he had no sympathy for peasants or their archaic culture. Yet he picked up stories from the oral tradition and adapted them to the salon, adjusting the tone to suit the taste of a sophisticated audience. Away went the nonsense about paths of pins and needles and the cannibalizing of grandmother in “Little Red Riding Hood.” Nevertheless the tale retained much of its original power. Unlike Mme d’Aulnoy, Mme de Murat, and other leaders of the fad for fairy tales under Louis XIV, Perrault did not deviate from the original story line and did not spoil the earthiness and simplicity of the oral version with prettified details. He acted as a conteur doué for his own milieu, as if he were the Louisquatorzean equivalent of the storytellers who squat around fires in Amazonia and New Guinea. Homer probably had reworked his material in a similar way twenty-six centuries earlier; Gide and Camus would do so again two centuries later.

但与所有将经典主题改编以迎合特定受众的讲故事者一样，佩罗在法国文学史上也代表着一种独特的现象：他是看似截然不同的精英文化与大众文化世界之间最重要的交汇点。这种交汇是如何发生的已不可考，但或许就发生在类似他故事集初版扉页的场景中——那是《鹅妈妈童谣》的第一个印刷版本——三个衣着考究的孩子正全神贯注地聆听一位老妪在看似仆人住所的地方讲述故事。老妪上方写着“ Contes de ma mère l'oye”（鹅妈妈的故事），显然是指老妇人咯咯的笑声。马克·索里亚诺认为，佩罗的儿子就是在这样的场景中听到了这些故事，之后佩罗对其进行了改编。但佩罗本人很可能也是在类似的场景中听到这些故事的，他那个阶层的大多数人也是如此。所有温文尔雅的百姓，他们的童年早期都是由奶妈和保姆照料的。她们用流行歌曲哄他们入睡，等他们学会说话后，就用“ histoires ou contes du temps passé”（正如佩罗在扉页上所写，即“老妇人的故事”）来逗他们开心。当“ veillée”（守夜人）在村庄里延续着民间传统时，仆人和奶妈则成为了连接平民文化和精英文化的桥梁。即使在看似最没有共同之处的“大世纪”（Grand Siècle）鼎盛时期，这两种文化仍然紧密相连；因为拉辛和吕利的观众们早已在乳汁中吸收了民间传说。

But much as he has in common with all storytellers who adapt standard themes to particular audiences, Perrault represents something unique in the history of French literature: the supreme point of contact between the seemingly separate worlds of elite and popular culture. How the contact took place cannot be determined, but it may have occurred in a scene like the one in the frontispiece to the original edition of his tales, the first printed version of Mother Goose, which shows three well-dressed children listening raptly to an old crone at work in what seems to be the servants’ quarters. An inscription above her reads Contes de ma mère l’oye, an allusion, apparently, to the cackling sound of old wives’ tales. Marc Soriano has argued that Perrault’s son learned the stories in some such scene and that Perrault then reworked them. But Perrault himself probably heard them in a similar setting, and so did most persons of his class; for all gentle folk passed their early childhood with wet nurses and nannies, who lulled them to sleep with popular songs and amused them, after they had learned to talk, with histoires ou contes du temps passé, as Perrault put it on his title page—that is, old wives’ tales. While the veillée perpetuated popular traditions within the village, servants and wet nurses provided the link between the culture of the people and the culture of the elite. The two cultures were connected, even at the height of the Grand Siècle, when they would seem to have least in common; for the audiences of Racine and Lully had imbibed folklore with their milk.

此外，佩罗版本的童话故事通过“蓝色图书馆”（Bibliothèque bleue）重新进入大众文化的洪流。这些简陋的平装书在村庄的睡前聚会（veillée）上被朗读，前提是有人识字。这些蓝色小书收录了睡美人、小红帽以及巨人卡冈图亚、福尔图纳图斯、罗伯特·勒·迪亚布勒、让·德·加莱、艾蒙四子、莫吉斯·勒·恩尚特尔等众多来自口头传统的人物，而佩罗从未接触过这些人物。将他那简略的《鹅妈妈童谣》与早期现代法国浩瀚的民间传说混为一谈是错误的。但两者之间的比较凸显了将文化变迁线性地理解为伟大思想自下而上渗透的局限性。文化潮流相互交织，既向上流动也向下流动，同时通过不同的媒介传播，并将截然不同的群体——从农民到沙龙里的世故之人——联系起来^。71

Furthermore, Perrault’s version of the tales reentered the stream of popular culture through the Bibliothèque bleue, the primitive paperbacks that were read aloud at veillées in villages where someone was capable of reading. These little blue books featured Sleeping Beauty and Little Red Riding Hood as well as Gargantua, Fortunatus, Robert le Diable, Jean de Calais, les Quatre Fils Aymon, Maugis l’Enchanteur, and many other characters from the oral tradition that Perrault never picked up. It would be a mistake to identify his meager Mother Goose with the vast folklore of early modern France. But a comparison of the two points up the inadequacy of envisaging cultural change in linear fashion, as the downward seepage of great ideas. Cultural currents intermingled, moving up as well as down, while passing through different media and connecting groups as far apart as peasants and salon sophisticates.⁷¹

这些群体并非生活在完全独立的精神世界中。他们有很多共同之处——首先也是最重要的，是共同的故事。尽管旧制度下的社会等级和地域差异根深蒂固，但这些故事传递出的特征、价值观、态度以及看待世界的方式，却是法国独有的。强调它们的法国性并非陷入对民族精神的浪漫幻想，而是承认存在着独特的文化风格，正是这些风格将法国人，或者说大多数法国人（因为必须考虑到布列塔尼人、巴斯克人和其他族群的特殊性），与当时被认为是德国人、意大利人和英国人的其他民族区分开来^。72

Those groups did not inhabit completely separate mental worlds. They had a great deal in common—first and foremost, a common stock of tales. Despite the distinctions of social rank and geographical particularity, which permeated the society of the Old Regime, the tales communicated traits, values, attitudes, and a way of construing the world that was peculiarly French. To insist upon their Frenchness is not to fall into romantic rhapsodizing about national spirit, but rather to recognize the existence of distinct cultural styles, which set off the French, or most of them (for one must make allowances for the peculiarities of Bretons, Basques, and other ethnic groups), from other peoples identified at the time as German, Italian, and English.⁷²

这一点或许看似显而易见或老生常谈，但它却与历史学界的传统观念背道而驰。传统观念是将过去切割成细小的片段，并将它们束之高阁，以便进行细致入微的分析，并按照理性的顺序重新排列。旧制度下的农民并非如此思考。他们试图用手头现有的材料来理解这个喧嚣嘈杂、混乱不堪的世界。这些材料包括大量源自古代印欧传说的故事。讲述故事的农民们并非仅仅觉得这些故事有趣、恐怖或实用，他们还认为这些故事“有助于思考”。他们以自己的方式重新诠释这些故事，用它们拼凑出一幅现实图景，并展现这幅图景对于社会底层人民的意义。在这个过程中，他们赋予了故事诸多含义，但其中大部分如今已不复存在，因为它们根植于无法重现的语境和表演形式之中。然而，总体而言，这些文本仍然蕴含着一些重要的意义。通过研究全部的法国童话故事，并将它们与其他传统中的类似故事进行比较，人们可以看到这种普遍的意义维度体现在独特的叙事手法中——故事的框架构建方式、氛围的营造、主题的组合以及情节的推进。法国童话故事具有共同的风格，传达了一种共同的经验建构方式。与佩罗童话不同，它们不提供道德教诲；与启蒙运动的哲学不同，它们不涉及抽象概念。但它们展现了世界的构成以及人们如何应对世界。它们说，世界是由傻瓜和骗子组成的：与其做傻瓜，不如做骗子。

The point might seem obvious or belabored, except that it flies in the face of conventional wisdom in the history profession, which is to cut the past into tiny segments and wall them up within monographs, where they can be analyzed in minute detail and rearranged in rational order. The peasants of the Old Regime did not think monographically. They tried to make sense of the world, in all its booming, buzzing confusion, with the materials they had at hand. Those materials included a vast repertory of stories derived from ancient Indo-European lore. The peasant tellers of tales did not merely find the stories amusing or frightening or functional. They found them “good to think with.” They reworked them in their own manner, using them to piece together a picture of reality and to show what that picture meant for persons at the bottom of the social order. In the process, they infused the tales with many meanings, most of which are now lost because they were embedded in contexts and performances that cannot be recaptured. At a general level, however, some of the significance still shows through the texts. By studying the entire corpus of them and by comparing them with corresponding tales in other traditions, one can see this general dimension of meaning expressed in characteristic narrative devices—ways of framing stories, setting tone, combining motifs, and inflecting plots. The French tales have a common style, which communicates a common way of construing experience. Unlike the tales of Perrault, they do not provide morals; and unlike the philosophies of the Enlightenment, they do not deal in abstractions. But they show how the world is made and how one can cope with it. The world is made of fools and knaves, they say: better to be a knave than a fool.

随着时间的推移，这一主题超越了民间故事的范畴，也超越了农民阶层的界限。它成为法国文化中一个重要的主题，既体现在其最精致的层面，也体现在其最通俗的层面。或许，这一主题在佩罗的《穿靴子的猫》中得到了最充分的展现，这只猫堪称“笛卡尔式”狡猾的化身。穿靴子的猫属于一个由来已久的骗子家族：一方面，是民间故事中那些狡猾的幼子、继女、学徒、仆人和狐狸；另一方面，是法国戏剧和小说中那些精明狡猾的骗子和诈骗犯——斯卡潘、克里斯潘、斯卡拉姆什、吉尔·比亚斯、费加罗、西哈诺·德·贝热拉克、罗伯特·马凯尔。这一主题至今仍然活跃在《游戏规则》等电影和《鸭 鸣报》等杂志中。它仍然保留在日常语言中，比如法国人会赞许地称呼另一个人为“méchant ”和“malin”（既指“邪恶的”，也指“精明的”——在法国，做坏事反而是一种美德）。它已经从古代农民的语言流传到每个人的日常生活中。

In the course of time, the message spread beyond the limits of folktales and beyond the bounds of the peasantry. It became a master theme of French culture in general, at its most sophisticated as well as its most popular. Perhaps it reached its fullest development in Perrault’s Puss ’n Boots, the embodiment of “Cartesian” cunning. Puss belongs to a long line of tricksters: on the one hand, the crafty younger sons, stepdaughters, apprentices, servants, and foxes of the folk tales; on the other, the artful dodgers and confidence men of French plays and novels—Scapin, Crispin, Scaramouche, Gil Bias, Figaro, Cyrano de Bergerac, Robert Macaire. The theme still lives in films like Les Règles du jeu and journals like Le Canard enchaîné. It survives in ordinary language, as in the approving way one Frenchman will call another méchant and malin (both “wicked” and “shrewd”—France is a country where it is good to be bad). It has passed from the ancient peasantry into everyone’s everyday life.

当然，如今的日常生活早已不再像旧制度时期那样充满马尔萨斯式的苦难。现代的骗子们玩起了新的把戏：他们不再试图智胜地方领主，而是逃税避税，躲避权力滔天的国家机器。但他们的每一个举动，都是对先辈——穿靴子的猫以及其他所有故事——的致敬。这些古老的故事跨越社会界限，历经数个世纪的流传，最终获得了强大的生命力。它们不断变化，却始终保持着原有的韵味。即使融入了现代文化的主流，它们依然见证着一种古老世界观的顽强生命力。在谚语的指引下，法国人依然试图智胜体制。一切都在变化，一切依旧。

Of course everyday life no longer resembles the Malthusian misery of the Old Regime. The modern trickster follows new scenarios: he cheats on his income tax and dodges an all-powerful state instead of trying to outwit a local seigneur. But every move he makes is a tribute to his ancestors—Puss ’n Boots and all the rest. As the old stories spread across social boundaries and over centuries, they developed enormous staying power. They changed without losing their flavor. Even after they had become absorbed in the main currents of modern culture, they testified to the tenacity of an old view of the world. Guided by proverbial wisdom, the French are still trying to outwit the system. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

一年期满后，主人没有给他工钱，因为主人心想：“这是最聪明的办法；这样我既能省钱，他也不会走，会乖乖地继续为我效力。”仆人什么也没说，第二年也像第一年一样干活；到了年底，主人依然没有给他工钱，他只好顺从地继续干下去。

When a year was ended, his master gave him no wages, for he said to himself: “That is the cleverest way; for I shall save something, and he will not go away, but stay quietly in my service.” The servant said nothing, but did his work the second year as he had done it the first; and when at the end of this, likewise, he received no wages, he submitted and still stayed on.

第三年也过去了，主人想了想，把手伸进口袋，却什么也没掏出来。最后，仆人说道：“主人，我忠诚地服侍了您三年，请您仁慈地给我应得的吧；因为我想离开，去外面的世界看看。”

When the third year also was past, the master considered, put his hand in his pocket, but pulled nothing out. Then at last the servant said: “Master, for three years I have served you honestly, be so good as to give me what I ought to have; for I wish to leave, and look about me a little more in the world.”

“是的，我的好伙计，”老吝啬鬼回答说，“你勤劳地服侍我，因此你将得到丰厚的报酬。”说着，他把手伸进口袋，却只数出三个便士，说道：“喏，你每年一个便士；这可是丰厚的报酬，很少有主人能给你这样的。”

“Yes, my good fellow,” answered the old miser; “you have served me industriously, and therefore you shall be graciously rewarded” ; and he put his hand into his pocket, but counted out only three farthings, saying: “There, you have a farthing for each year; that is large and liberal pay, such as you would have received from few masters.”

这位诚实的仆人对金钱一窍不通，他把自己的钱都装进口袋，心想：“啊！现在我的钱袋满了，何必再费力劳作呢！”于是他继续前行，翻山越岭，一路歌唱跳跃，尽情享受快乐时光。一天，他经过一片灌木丛时，一个矮个子男人走了出来，向他喊道：“快乐的兄弟，你要去哪里？我看你好像没什么忧虑。”“我有什么可忧愁的呢？”仆人回答说，“我富足多了，三年的工钱都在我的口袋里叮当作响。”

The honest servant, who understood little about money, put his fortune into his pocket, and thought: “Ah! now that I have my purse full, why need I trouble and plague myself any longer with hard work!” So on he went, up hill and down dale; and sang and jumped to his heart’s content. Now it came to pass that as he was going by a thicket a little man stepped out, and called to him: “Whither away, merry brother? I see you do not carry many cares.” “Why should I be sad?” answered the servant; “I have enough; three years’ wages are jingling in my pocket.”

“你的宝藏有多少？”矮人问他。

“How much is your treasure?” the dwarf asked him.

“多少钱？总共三个四分之一英镑。”

“How much? Three farthings sterling, all told.”

“听着，”矮人说，“我是一个穷苦人，把你的三个便士给我吧；我已经干不动活了，但你还年轻，很容易就能挣到面包。”

“Look here,” said the dwarf, “I am a poor needy man, give me your three farthings; I can work no longer, but you are young, and can easily earn your bread.”

仆人心地善良，怜悯这个矮小的男人，便把三个便士给了他，说：“你拿着吧，看在老天的份上，我不会因此而受到任何损失。”

And as the servant had a good heart, and felt pity for the little man, he gave him the three farthings, saying: “Take them in the name of Heaven, I shall not be any the worse for it.”

矮个子男人说：“我看你心地善良，就满足你三个愿望，每个愿望对应一个方钱。你的愿望都会实现。”

Then the little man said: “As I see you have a good heart, I grant you three wishes, one for each farthing. They shall all be fulfilled.”

“啊哈？”仆人说，“你真是个能创造奇迹的人！好吧，既然如此，我首先想要一把枪，能百发百中；其次想要一把小提琴，我一拉，所有听到的人都会情不自禁地跳舞；第三，如果我向任何人求助，他都无法拒绝。”

“Aha?” said the servant, “you are one of those who can work wonders! Well, then, if it is to be so, I wish, first, for a gun, which shall hit everything that I aim at; secondly, for a fiddle, which when I play on it, shall compel all who hear it to dance; thirdly, that if I ask a favor of any one he shall not be able to refuse it.”

“所有这些都给你，”矮人说着，把手伸进灌木丛里，你瞧，那里放着一把小提琴和一支枪，一应俱全，仿佛是事先吩咐过的。他把这些东西给了仆人，然后对他说：“无论你何时提出任何要求，世上没有人能拒绝你。”

“All that shall you have,” said the dwarf; and put his hand into the bush and just imagine, there lay a fiddle and gun, all ready, just as if they had been ordered. These he gave to the servant, and then said to him: “Whatever you may ask at any time, no man in the world shall be able to deny you.”

“真是太棒了！还能奢求什么呢？”仆人自言自语道，然后兴高采烈地继续前行。不久，他遇到一个留着山羊胡的犹太人，正站在树上聆听一只鸟儿的歌唱。“我的天哪，”他惊叹道，“这么小的鸟儿竟然有这么响亮的嗓门！要是我的鸟儿也这样就好了！要是有人能在它尾巴上撒点盐就好了！”

“Heart alive! What more can one desire?” said the servant to himself, and went merrily onwards. Soon afterwards he met a Jew with a long goat’s-beard, who was standing listening to the song of a bird which was sitting up at the top of a tree. “Good heavens,” he was exclaiming, “that such a small creature should have such a fearfully loud voice! If it were but mine! If only some one would sprinkle some salt upon its tail!”

“如果就这些，”仆人说，“那鸟很快就会飞下来。”说着，他瞄准射击，鸟儿应声落入荆棘丛中。“你这无赖，”他对犹太人说，“自己去把鸟弄出来！”

“If that is all,” said the servant, “the bird shall soon be down here,” and taking aim he shot, and down fell the bird into the thorn-bushes. “Go, you rogue,” he said to the Jew, “and fetch the bird out for yourself!”

“哦！”犹太人说，“主人，别把那只恶鸟放出来，我马上就去。既然您已经打中了它，我就自己去把它弄出来。”说完，他便躺在地上，开始往灌木丛里爬。

“Oh!” said the Jew, “leave out the rogue, my master, and I will do it at once. I will get the bird out for myself, now that you have hit it.” Then he lay down on the ground, and began to crawl into the thicket.

当他快步走入荆棘丛中时，好仆人的兴致实在太高，便拿起小提琴开始拉了起来。不一会儿，犹太人的双腿也跟着动了起来，跳了起来，仆人拉得越欢，舞跳得也越欢快。可是，荆棘撕破了他破烂的衣服，刮伤了他的胡须，刺得他浑身生疼。“哎呀，”犹太人喊道，“你拉琴干什么？别拉琴了，主人；我不想跳舞。”

When he was fast among the thorns, the good servant’s humor so tempted him that he took up his fiddle and began to play. In a moment the Jew’s legs began to move, and to jump into the air, and the more the servant fiddled the better went the dance. But the thorns tore his shabby coat from him, combed his beard, and pricked and plucked him all over the body. “Oh dear,” cried the Jew, “what do I want with your fiddling? Leave the fiddle alone, master; I do not want to dance.”

但仆人不听他的劝告，心想：“你骗人骗得够多了，现在就让荆棘丛也来骗骗你吧。”于是他又开始拉琴，犹太人不得不跳得更高，衣服的碎片都挂在了荆棘上。“唉，我真倒霉！”犹太人喊道，“只要他别再拉琴了，我什么都给他——满满一袋金子！”“如果你这么慷慨，”仆人说，“我就不拉琴了；不过我得承认，你跳舞跳得真好，令人佩服。”说完，他拿了金袋就走了。

But the servant did not listen to him, and thought, “You have fleeced people often enough, now the thorn-bushes shall do the same to you”; and he began to play over again, so that the Jew had to jump higher than ever, and scraps of his coat were left hanging on the thorns. “Oh, woe’s me!” cried the Jew; “I will give the gentleman whatsoever he asks if only he leaves off fiddling—a whole purse full of gold.” “If you are so liberal,” said the servant, “I will stop my music; but this I must say to your credit, that you dance to it so well that one must really admire it”; and having taken the purse, he went his way.

犹太人站在那里，静静地看着仆人，直到他走远，消失在视线之外，然后才用尽全力吼道：“你这卑鄙的乐师，你这酒馆里的拉琴手！等着瞧，等我逮到你落单，我非得把你追到鞋底都磨掉不可！你这衣衫褴褛的家伙！你嘴里塞六个便士，才值三个半便士！”他一边骂一边飞快地骂个不停。骂完之后，他稍微喘了口气，就跑进城里去告状。

The Jew stood still and watched the servant quietly until he was far off and out of sight, and then he screamed out with all his might: “You miserable musician, you beer-house fiddler! Wait till I catch you alone, I will hunt you till the soles of your shoes fall off! You ragamuffin! Just put six farthings in your mouth, that you may be worth three halfpence!” and went on abusing him as fast as he could speak. As soon as he had refreshed himself a little in this way, and got his breath again, he ran into the town to the justice.

“法官大人，”他说，“我来是要控诉；瞧瞧，一个恶棍在大街上抢劫并虐待了我！地上的石头都会同情我；我的衣服被撕破了，身上被刺伤和抓伤，我的钱袋也全没了——都是些金币，一分一分地值钱；看在上帝的份上，把那人关进监狱吧！”

“My lord judge,” he said, “I have come to make a complaint; see how a rascal has robbed and ill-treated me on the public highway! A stone on the ground might pity me; my clothes all torn, my body pricked and scratched, my little all gone with my purse—good ducats, each piece better than the last; for God’s sake let the man be thrown into prison!”

“是士兵吗？”法官问道，“用军刀砍伤你的？”“绝非如此！”犹太人答道，“他没有剑，而是在背后挂着一支枪，脖子上挂着一把小提琴；这恶棍很容易辨认。”

“Was it a soldier,” asked the judge, “who cut you thus with his sabre?” “Nothing of the sort!” said the Jew; “it was no sword that he had, but a gun hanging at his back, and a fiddle at his neck; the wretch may easily be recognized.”

于是法官派人去追那人，他们找到了那个善良的仆人，他走得很慢，而且他们还在他身上找到了装有钱的钱袋。仆人一被带到法官面前就说：“我没有碰那个犹太人，也没有拿他的钱；他是自愿把钱给我的，好让我停止拉琴，因为他受不了我的音乐。”

So the judge sent his people out after the man, and they found the good servant, who had been going quite slowly along, and they found, too, the purse with the money upon him. As soon as he was taken before the judge he said: “I did not touch the Jew, nor take his money; he gave it to me of his own free will, that I might leave off fiddling because he could not bear my music.”

“老天保佑我们！”犹太人喊道，“他的谎言多得像墙上的苍蝇一样多。”

“Heaven defend us!” cried the Jew, “his lies are as thick as flies upon the wall.”

但法官也不相信他的辩解，说道：“这辩解站不住脚，没有犹太人会这么做。”因为他犯了在公共道路上抢劫的罪行，法官判处这位善良的仆人绞刑。被押往刑场时，犹太人又在后面大喊：“你这个流浪汉！你这个卑鄙的家伙！现在你终于要得到你应得的报应了！”仆人默默地跟着刽子手爬上梯子，但在最后一级台阶上，他转过身对法官说：“临死前，请您答应我一个请求。”

But the judge also did not believe his tale, and said: “This is a bad defense, no Jew would do that.” And because he had committed robbery on the public highway, he sentenced the good servant to be hanged. As he was being led away the Jew again screammed after him: “You vagabond! You dog of a fiddler! Now you are going to receive your well-earned reward!” The servant walked quietly with the hangman up the ladder, but upon the last step he turned round and said to the judge: “Grant me just one request before I die.”

“是的，如果你不要求保命的话，”法官说。

“Yes, if you do not ask your life,” said the judge.

“我不求活命，”仆人回答说，“但作为最后的恩惠，请让我再拉一次琴。”

“I do not ask for life,” answered the servant, “but as a last favor let me play once more upon my fiddle.”

犹太人大声喊道：“杀人！杀人！看在上帝的份上，别让他得逞！别让他得逞！”但法官说：“我怎能不让他享受这短暂的快乐呢？这已经赐予他了，就让他享受吧。”然而，考虑到仆人所得到的恩惠，法官也无法拒绝。

The Jew raised a great cry of “Murder! Murder! For goodness’ sake do not allow it! Do not allow it!” But the judge said: “Why should I not let him have this short pleasure? It has been granted to him, and he shall have it.” However, he could not have refused on account of the gift which had been bestowed on the servant.

犹太人哭喊道：“哎呀！我好惨！快把我绑起来！”好仆人从脖子上取下小提琴，准备演奏。他拉响第一声，所有人都开始颤抖，法官、书记员、刽子手和他的手下都跟着抖了起来，就连准备绑犹太人的人手里的绳子也掉了。第二声响起，所有人都抬起了腿，刽子手也松开了好仆人，准备跳舞。第三声响起，他们都跳了起来，法官和犹太人跳得最欢。很快，所有出于好奇聚集在集市上的人都加入了他们的行列，老少咸宜，胖瘦不一，都跳了起来。就连跑过来的狗也站了起来，用后腿直立，四处乱窜；他拉得越久，舞者们跳得越高，头撞在一起，发出凄厉的尖叫。

Then the Jew cried: “Oh! woe’s me! tie me fast!” while the good servant took his fiddle from his neck, and made ready. As he gave the first scrape, they all began to quiver and shake, the judge, his clerk, and the hangman and his men, and the cord fell out of the hand of the one who was going to tie the Jew fast. At the second scrape all raised their legs, and the hangman let go his hold of the good servant, and made himself ready to dance. At the third scrape they all leaped up and began to dance; the judge and the Jew being the best at jumping. Soon all who had gathered in the market-place out of curiosity were dancing with them; old and young, fat and lean, one with another. The dogs, likewise, which had run there, got up on their hind legs and capered about; and the longer he played, the higher sprang the dancers, so that they knocked against each other’s heads, and began to shriek terribly.

最后，法官气喘吁吁地喊道：“只要你停止拉琴，我就饶你一命！” 善良的仆人听了这话，心生怜悯，拿起琴重新挂在脖子上，然后走下梯子。他走到躺在地上喘息的犹太人面前，说道：“你这无赖，快说出你的钱是从哪儿来的，否则我就拿起琴继续拉！” “我偷的，我偷的！”他喊道，“可是你挣的钱是正当的！” 于是，法官下令把犹太人押上绞刑架，像对待小偷一样绞死了他。

At length the judge cried, quite out of breath: “I will give you your life if you will only stop fiddling.” The good servant thereupon had compassion, took his fiddle and hung it round his neck again, and stepped down the ladder. Then he went up to the Jew, who was lying upon the ground panting for breath, and said: “You rascal, now confess, whence you got the money, or I will take my fiddle and begin to play again.” “I stole it, I stole it!” cried he; “but you have honestly earned it.” So the judge had the Jew taken to the gallows and hanged as a thief.

她打发他到路边去放羊。他得整天待在户外，身上只穿着破烂不堪、打着补丁的衣服。食物方面，她只给他一小片面包，上面涂的黄油少得可怜，无论他抹得多薄，都几乎盖不住面包表面。

She sent him out to tend the sheep along the roadside. He had to stay outdoors all day, with only tattered and patched-up clothes to cover himself. For food, she gave him only a small slice of bread with so little butter that it hardly covered the surface, no matter how thinly he spread it.

一天，他坐在长凳上，一边吃着这顿简陋的饭菜，一边照看着他的羊群。这时，他看见一个衣衫褴褛的老妇人拄着拐杖沿着路走过来。她看起来像个乞丐，但其实是一位装扮成仙女的女子，就像那个时代真的存在仙女一样。她走到小男孩面前，对他说：“我很饿，你能给我一些面包吗？”

One day as he was eating this meager meal while sitting on a bench and watching over his flock, he saw a ragged old woman come along the road leaning on a stick. She looked just like a beggar, but was really a fairy in disguise, such as existed in those times. She came up to the little boy and said to him, “I am very hungry. Will you give me some of your bread?”

“唉！我这点儿东西都不够吃，继母太吝啬了，每天都只给我切一小块。明天就更少了。”

“Alas! I hardly have enough for myself, for my stepmother is so stingy that every day she cuts me a smaller slice. Tomorrow it will be smaller still.”

“孩子，可怜可怜这位可怜的老太太，把你的晚餐分我一点吧。”

“Take pity on a poor old woman, my boy, and give me a bit of your dinner.”

心地善良的孩子同意把自己的面包分给乞丐。第二天，乞丐在他准备吃饭时又来了，再次乞求怜悯。虽然这块面包比前一天的要小，但他还是同意切下一部分给她。

The child, who had a good heart, agreed to share his bread with the beggar, who returned the next day when he was about to eat and asked for pity once again. Although the piece was still smaller than the one from the previous day, he agreed to cut off part of it for her.

第三天，面包和黄油少得几乎只有手掌那么大，但老妇人还是分到了她那份。

On the third day, the bread and butter was hardly as large as your hand, but still the old woman received her share.

她吃完后说：“你对一个你以为在乞讨面包的老妇人很好。我其实是个仙女，为了报答你，我可以满足你三个愿望。选出三个最能让你快乐的愿望吧。”

When she had eaten it, she said, “You were good to an old woman who you thought was begging for bread. I am really a fairy, and I have the power to grant you three wishes as a recompense. Choose the three things that will give you the most pleasure.”

小牧羊人手里拿着一把弩。他许愿说，他所有的箭都能百发百中地射落小鸟，他吹奏的笛声能让所有人情不自禁地翩翩起舞，不管他们愿不愿意。他一时想不出第三个愿望；但回想起继母对他的种种虐待，他想要报复，于是许愿说，每次他打喷嚏，继母都会忍不住放个响屁。

The little shepherd had a crossbow in his hand. He wished that all of his arrows would fell small birds without a miss and that the tunes he played on his flute would have the power to make everyone dance, whether they wanted to or not. He had a little trouble deciding on the third wish; but in thinking back on all the cruel treatment he had received from his stepmother, he wanted to have vengeance and wished that every time he sneezed she would not be able to resist letting out a loud fart.

“你的愿望将会实现，我的小家伙，”仙女说道，她破烂的衣服变成了漂亮的裙子，她的脸也显得年轻而容光焕发。

“Your desires will be accomplished, my little man,” said the fairy, whose rags had become transformed into a beautiful dress and whose face appeared young and fresh.

傍晚，小男孩领着羊群回家；他刚进屋就打了个喷嚏。他的继母正在炉边忙着做荞麦饼，立刻放了个响亮的屁。每次小男孩说“阿嚏”，老太太都会发出震耳欲聋的响声回应，羞愧难当。那天晚上，邻居们聚在一起参加守夜仪式时 ，小男孩不停地打喷嚏，大家都责怪老太太太太粗鲁无礼。

In the evening, the little boy led his flock back; and as he entered the house, he sneezed. Immediately, his stepmother, who was busy making buckwheat cakes at the hearth, let out a loud, resounding fart. And every time he said “atchoo,” the old woman answered with such an explosive sound that she was covered with shame. That night when the neighbors gathered together at the veillée, the little boy took to sneezing so often that everyone reproached the woman for her nastiness.

第二天是星期天。继母带着小家伙去做弥撒，他们坐在讲台下。弥撒前半段一切正常；但牧师刚开始布道，孩子就打起了喷嚏，继母尽管竭力忍住，还是忍不住放了一大堆屁，脸涨得通红，所有人都盯着她看，她恨不得立刻钻进地底下。这不雅的声响持续不断，牧师实在无法继续布道，便吩咐执事把这个如此不尊重圣地的女人请出去。

The next day was a Sunday. The stepmother took the little fellow to mass, and they sat underneath the pulpit. Nothing unusual happened during the first part of the service; but as soon as the priest began his sermon, the child began to sneeze and his stepmother, despite all her efforts to contain them, immediately let out a salvo of farts and turned so red in the face that everyone stared at her and she wished she were a hundred feet under the ground. As the improper noise continued without letting up, the priest could not go on with his sermon and ordered the beadle to usher out this woman who showed so little respect for the holy place.

第二天，神父来到农场，斥责那女人在教堂里举止失当，令整个教区都蒙羞。“这不是我的错，”她说，“我丈夫的儿子每次打喷嚏，我就忍不住放屁，快把我逼疯了。”就在这时，那个正要赶羊离开的小家伙打了两三个喷嚏，女人立刻有了反应。

The next day the priest came to the farm and scolded the woman for behaving so badly in church. She had scandalized the entire parish. “It’s not my fault,” she said. “Every time my husband’s son sneezes, I can’t prevent myself from farting. It’s driving me crazy.” Just at that moment the little fellow, who was about to leave with his sheep, let out two or three sneezes and the woman responded immediately.

神父带着男孩离开了家，一路走一路问，一边训斥他，一边试图找出他的秘密。可狡猾的小家伙却什么也不肯说。他们路过一丛灌木，几只小鸟栖息在那里。男孩用弩箭射中了一只，让神父去把它捡回来。神父答应了，但当他来到鸟儿落下的地方——一片荆棘丛生的地带——时，小男孩吹起了笛子，神父不由自主地开始旋转起舞，速度之快，以至于他的长袍被荆棘勾住，很快便被撕成了碎片。

The priest left the house with the boy and walked along with him, trying to discover his secret and giving him a scolding all the while. But the crafty little rogue would not confess anything. When they passed near a bush where several small birds were perched, he shot one of them with his crossbow and asked the priest to fetch it. The priest agreed, but when he arrived at the spot where the bird had fallen, a thorny area overrun with brambles, the little boy played on his flute and the priest began to whirl and dance so fast, in spite of himself, that his cassock got caught in the thorns; and before long it was torn to shreds.

音乐终于停了下来，神父也终于能停下来，但他已经气喘吁吁。他把小男孩带到治安法官面前，指控他毁坏了自己的法衣。“他是个邪恶的巫婆，”神父说，“他必须受到惩罚。”

When at last the music died down, the priest was able to stop; but he was completely out of breath. He brought the little boy before the justice of the peace and accused him of destroying his cassock. “He is a wicked witch,” the priest said. “He must be punished.”

男孩从口袋里掏出他小心翼翼放进去的笛子，刚吹响第一个音符，站着的牧师就开始跳舞；书记员开始在椅子上旋转；治安法官也在座位上蹦来蹦去；在场的每个人都疯狂地抖腿，以至于法庭看起来像个舞厅。

The boy took out his flute, which he had carefully slipped into his pocket, and as soon as he sounded the first note, the priest, who was standing, began to dance; the clerk began to whirl on his chair; the justice of the peace himself bounded up and down on his seat; and everyone present shook their legs so wildly that the courtroom looked like a dance hall.

很快，他们就厌倦了这种强迫锻炼，并向小男孩承诺，如果他停止玩耍，他们就会放过他。

Soon they became tired of this forced exercise, and they promised the little boy that they would leave him alone if he would stop playing.

这最后一件不公之事让孔塔特联想到了猫。猫在他的叙述中，以及圣塞韦林街那户人家中，都占据着特殊的地位。师傅的妻子非常喜爱猫，尤其是她最爱的那只灰猫 。一股对猫的热情似乎席卷了整个印刷行业，至少在师傅们——或者 用工人们的话说，资产阶级——的圈子里是如此。一位资产阶级养了二十五只猫。他请人给它们画肖像，还用烤鸡喂它们。与此同时，学徒们则要应付印刷区里数量众多的流浪猫，这些猫让学徒们苦不堪言。猫整夜在学徒们昏暗的卧室屋顶上嚎叫，让他们根本无法安睡。杰罗姆和莱维耶每天凌晨四五点就得踉跄着起床，给最早到的学徒开门，所以他们一天的工作都是在疲惫不堪中开始的，而资产阶级却还在睡懒觉。师傅甚至不和工人们一起工作，就像他不和他们一起吃饭一样。他让工头管理店铺，自己则很少露面，除非是来发泄他暴躁的脾气，而这通常都以学徒为代价。

This last injustice brought Contat to the theme of cats. They occupied a special place in his narrative and in the household of the rue Saint-Séverin. The master’s wife adored them, especially la grise (the gray), her favorite. A passion for cats seemed to have swept through the printing trade, at least at the level of the masters, or bourgeois as the workers called them. One bourgeois kept twenty-five cats. He had their portraits painted and fed them on roast fowl. Meanwhile, the apprentices were trying to cope with a profusion of alley cats who also thrived in the printing district and made the boys’ lives miserable. The cats howled all night on the roof over the apprentices’ dingy bedroom, making it impossible to get a full night’s sleep. As Jerome and Léveillé had to stagger out of bed at four or five in the morning to open the gate for the earliest arrivals among the journeymen, they began the day in a state of exhaustion while the bourgeois slept late. The master did not even work with the men, just as he did not eat with them. He let the foreman run the shop and rarely appeared in it, except to vent his violent temper, usually at the expense of the apprentices.

一天晚上，男孩们决心纠正这种不公平的局面。莱维耶天生擅长模仿，他爬上屋顶，直到来到主人卧室附近，然后开始嚎叫和喵喵叫，声音凄厉无比，吓得这位资产阶级先生和他的妻子彻夜难眠。几个晚上过去了，他们认定自己中了巫术。但他们没有去求助——主人极其虔诚，女主人也极其依赖她的神父——而是命令学徒们把猫赶走。女主人下了命令，并叮嘱男孩们千万不要吓到她的鬼魂。

One night the boys resolved to right this inequitable state of affairs. Léveillé, who had an extraordinary talent for mimickry, crawled along the roof until he reached a section near the master’s bedroom, and then he took to howling and meowing so horribly that the bourgeois and his wife did not sleep a wink. After several nights of this treatment, they decided they were being bewitched. But instead of calling the cure—the master was exceptionally devout and the mistress exceptionally attached to her confessor—they commanded the apprentices to get rid of the cats. The mistress gave the order, enjoining the boys above all to avoid frightening her grise.

杰罗姆和莱维耶兴高采烈地开始工作，工匠们也加入进来帮忙。他们手持扫帚柄、压榨机的铁条和其他工具，四处搜寻能找到的猫，首先是灰猫。莱维耶用铁条砸碎了它的脊椎，杰罗姆补了一刀。然后他们把它藏在排水沟里，工匠们则赶着其他猫在屋顶上奔跑，用棍棒击打每一只够得着的猫，并将那些试图逃跑的猫装进事先准备好的麻袋里。他们把一袋袋半死不活的猫扔到院子里。接着，整个作坊的人都聚集过来，上演了一场模拟审判，包括卫兵、忏悔者和刽子手。在宣布这些动物有罪并进行临终祈祷后，他们把它们吊在临时搭建的绞刑架上。女主人被一阵阵的笑声惊醒，走了过来。她一看到一只血淋淋的猫被吊在绳子上，就尖叫起来。然后她意识到那可能是“灰猫”（la grise）。男人们向她保证，绝对不是：他们非常尊重这栋房子，绝不会做这种事。这时，主人出现了。他看到大家都停工了，勃然大怒，尽管他的妻子试图解释说，他们受到了更严重的违抗行为的威胁。然后，主人和女主人离开了，留下男人们沉浸在“喜悦”、“混乱”和“大笑”之中^。

Gleefully Jerome and Léveillé set to work, aided by the journeymen. Armed with broom handles, bars of the press, and other tools of their trade, they went after every cat they could find, beginning with la grise. Léveillé smashed its spine with an iron bar and Jerome finished it off. Then they stashed it in a gutter while the journeymen drove the other cats across the rooftops, bludgeoning every one within reach and trapping those who tried to escape in strategically placed sacks. They dumped sackloads of half-dead cats in the courtyard. Then the entire workshop gathered round and staged a mock trial, complete with guards, a confessor, and a public executioner. After pronouncing the animals guilty and administering last rites, they strung them up on an improvised gallows. Roused by gales of laughter, the mistress arrived. She let out a shriek as soon as she saw a bloody cat dangling from a noose. Then she realized it might be la grise. Certainly not, the men assured her: they had too much respect for the house to do such a thing. At this point the master appeared. He flew into a rage at the general stoppage of work, though his wife tried to explain that they were threatened by a more serious kind of insubordination. Then master and mistress withdrew, leaving the men delirious with “joy,” “disorder,” and “laughter.”²

笑声并未就此结束。在接下来的几天里，每当印刷工人们想下班找点乐子时，莱维耶至少用哑剧重现了整个场景二十遍。这种滑稽地重现印刷厂日常琐事的表演，在印刷工的行话里被称为“戏仿”，是工人们主要的娱乐方式。其目的是通过讽刺某人的怪癖来羞辱他。一次成功的戏仿会让被嘲笑的人怒不可遏——用行话来说就是“惹恼山羊”（ prendre la chèvre）——而他的同事们则会用“粗俗的音乐”来嘲弄他。他们会用排字棒刮擦活字盒的顶部，用木槌敲打字框，敲打橱柜，并像山羊一样咩咩叫。这种咩咩叫（行话里是bais）代表着受害者所遭受的羞辱，就像英语里“惹恼了你”一样。康塔特强调，莱维耶模仿猫咪的滑稽程度 前所未有，还引发了最热烈的即兴合唱。整个事件——猫咪大屠杀加上模仿 ——堪称杰罗姆整个职业生涯中最令人捧腹的经历。

The laughter did not end there. Léveillé reenacted the entire scene in mime at least twenty times during subsequent days when the printers wanted to knock off for some hilarity. Burlesque reenactments of incidents in the life of the shop, known as copies in printers’ slang, provided a major form of entertainment for the men. The idea was to humiliate someone in the shop by satirizing his peculiarities. A successful copie would make the butt of the joke fume with rage—prendre la chèvre (take the goat) in the shop slang—while his mates razzed him with “rough music.” They would run their composing sticks across the tops of the type cases, beat their mallets against the chases, pound on cupboards, and bleat like goats. The bleating (bais in the slang) stood for the humiliation heaped on the victims, as in English when someone “gets your goat.” Contat emphasized that Léveillé produced the funniest copies anyone had ever known and elicited the greatest choruses of rough music. The whole episode, cat massacre compounded by copies, stood out as the most hilarious experience in Jerome’s entire career.

然而，在现代读者看来，这却一点也不好笑，甚至令人作呕。一群成年男人像山羊一样咩咩叫，敲打着工具，而一个青少年则在重演宰杀无辜动物的仪式，这其中究竟有何幽默可言？我们无法理解其中的笑点，恰恰表明了我们与前工业时代欧洲工人之间的鸿沟。这种距离感或许可以作为探究的起点，因为人类学家发现，试图渗透一种异域文化的最佳切入点往往是它最晦涩难懂之处。当你意识到自己无法理解某些对当地人而言意义非凡的东西——比如笑话、谚语或仪式——你就能找到理解这套异域意义体系的切入点，从而将其解开。通过理解“大屠杀”这个笑话，或许就能“领悟”旧制度下手工业文化的一个基本要素。

Yet it strikes the modern reader as unfunny, if not downright repulsive. Where is the humor in a group of grown men bleating like goats and banging with their tools while an adolescent reenacts the ritual slaughter of a defenseless animal? Our own inability to get the joke is an indication of the distance that separates us from the workers of preindustrial Europe. The perception of that distance may serve as the starting point of an investigation, for anthropologists have found that the best points of entry in an attempt to penetrate an alien culture can be those where it seems to be most opaque. When you realize that you are not getting something—a joke, a proverb, a ceremony—that is particularly meaningful to the natives, you can see where to grasp a foreign system of meaning in order to unravel it. By getting the joke of the great cat massacre, it may be possible to “get” a basic ingredient of artisanal culture under the Old Regime.

首先需要说明的是，我们无法亲眼目睹猫被杀的事件。我们只能通过康塔特（Contat）的叙述来了解它，而这篇叙述写于事件发生约二十年后。康塔特的半虚构自传的真实性毋庸置疑，吉尔斯·巴伯（Giles Barber）在其精湛的文本版本中已对此进行了论证。它属于印刷工人自传写作的范畴，这一脉络从托马斯·普拉特（Thomas Platter）一直延续到托马斯·根特（Thomas Gent）、本杰明·富兰克林（Benjamin Franklin）、尼古拉斯·雷斯蒂夫·德·拉·布雷顿（Nicolas Restif de la Bretonne）和查尔斯·曼比·史密斯（Charles Manby Smith）。由于印刷工人，或者至少是排字工人，必须具备一定的读写能力才能胜任工作，因此他们是少数能够亲身讲述两三个世纪甚至四百年前工人阶级生活的工匠。尽管康塔特的自传中存在拼写错误和语法瑕疵，但它或许是这些记述中最丰富的。然而，它并不能被视为真实事件的完全再现。应该将其解读为康塔对事件的诠释，是他讲述故事的尝试。如同所有故事一样，它将事件置于一个参照框架之中；它假定听众具备一定的联想和反应模式；它为原始的经验素材赋予了意义。但既然我们首先试图探究其意义，就不应因其虚构的性质而却步。相反，通过将叙事视为虚构或有意义的虚构，我们可以利用它来发展一种民族学的文本阐释。

It should be explained at the outset that we cannot observe the killing of the cats at firsthand. We can study it only through Contat’s narrative, written about twenty years after the event. There can be no doubt about the authenticity of Contat’s quasi-fictional autobiography, as Giles Barber has demonstrated in his masterful edition of the text. It belongs to the line of autobiographical writing by printers that stretches from Thomas Platter to Thomas Gent, Benjamin Franklin, Nicolas Restif de la Bretonne, and Charles Manby Smith. Because printers, or at least compositors, had to be reasonably literate in order to do their work, they were among the few artisans who could give their own accounts of life in the working classes two, three, and four centuries ago. With all its misspellings and grammatical flaws, Contat’s is perhaps the richest of these accounts. But it cannot be regarded as a mirror-image of what actually happened. It should be read as Contat’s version of a happening, as his attempt to tell a story. Like all story telling, it sets the action in a frame of reference; it assumes a certain repertory of associations and responses on the part of its audience; and it provides meaningful shape to the raw stuff of experience. But since we are attempting to get at its meaning in the first place, we should not be put off by its fabricated character. On the contrary, by treating the narrative as fiction or meaningful fabrication we can use it to develop an ethnological explication de texte.

康塔特的故事中，大多数读者首先想到的解释可能是，这场猫咪屠杀是对主人及其妻子的隐晦攻击。康塔特将这一事件置于工人阶级与资产阶级生活境遇差异的背景下——这关乎生活的基本要素：工作、食物和睡眠。学徒们遭受的不公尤为触目惊心，他们被像牲畜一样对待，而那些牲畜却越过他们，占据了本应属于学徒的位置——主人餐桌旁。尽管学徒们似乎遭受的虐待最为严重，但文本明确指出，杀猫行为表达了工人阶级对资产阶级的仇恨：“主人爱猫，所以（工人们）恨猫。”策划了这场屠杀之后，莱维耶成了印刷厂的英雄，因为“所有工人都联合起来对抗老板。只要说老板的坏话，就能得到全体印刷工人的尊敬。” ^³

The first explanation that probably would occur to most readers of Contat’s story is that the cat massacre served as an oblique attack on the master and his wife. Contat set the event in the context of remarks about the disparity between the lot of workers and the bourgeois—a matter of the basic elements in life: work, food, and sleep. The injustice seemed especially flagrant in the case of the apprentices, who were treated like animals while the animals were promoted over their heads to the position the boys should have occupied, the place at the master’s table. Although the apprentices seem most abused, the text makes it clear that the killing of the cats expressed a hatred for the bourgeois that had spread among all the workers: “The masters love cats; consequently [the workers] hate them.” After masterminding the massacre, Léveillé became the hero of the shop, because “all the workers are in league against the masters. It is enough to speak badly of them [the masters] to be esteemed by the whole assembly of typographers.”³

历史学家往往将手工业时代视为工业化到来之前的田园牧歌式时期。有些人甚至将作坊描绘成一个大家庭，师傅和学徒们从事同样的工作，同桌吃饭，有时甚至同住一个屋檐下。4到1740年^，巴黎印刷作坊的氛围是否受到了某种毒害？

Historians have tended to treat the era of artisanal manufacturing as an idyllic period before the onset of industrialization. Some even portray the workshop as a kind of extended family in which master and journeymen labored at the same tasks, ate at the same table, and sometimes slept under the same roof.⁴ Had anything happened to poison the atmosphere of the printing shops in Paris by 1740?

十七世纪下半叶，在政府的支持下，大型印刷厂几乎消灭了所有小型印刷作坊，由少数印刷大师组成的寡头集团控制了整个行业。与此同时，印刷工匠的处境日益恶化。尽管估计数字^不一，统计数据也不可靠，但他们的数量似乎保持稳定：1666年约为335人，1701年约为339人，1721年约为340人。与此同时，印刷大师的数量减少了一半以上，从83人减少到36人，这是1686年法令规定的上限。这意味着印刷作坊数量减少，但工人数量却大幅增加，这一点可以从印刷机密度的统计数据中看出：1644年，巴黎有75家印刷作坊，共计180台印刷机；而到了1701年，只剩下51家作坊，拥有195台印刷机。这种趋势使得印刷工匠几乎不可能晋升为印刷大师。对于一个工匠来说，要想在这个行业中出人头地，几乎唯一的办法就是娶一位师傅的遗孀，因为师傅的职位已经成为世袭的特权，由丈夫传给妻子，由父亲传给儿子。

During the second half of the seventeenth century, the large printing houses, backed by the government, eliminated most of the smaller shops, and an oligarchy of masters seized control of the industry.⁵ At the same time, the situation of the journeymen deteriorated. Although estimates vary and statistics cannot be trusted, it seems that their number remained stable: approximately 335 in 1666, 339 in 1701, and 340 in 1721. Meanwhile the number of masters declined by more than half, from eighty-three to thirty-six, the limit fixed by an edict of 1686. That meant fewer shops with larger work forces, as one can see from statistics on the density of presses: in 1644 Paris had seventy-five printing shops with a total of 180 presses; in 1701 it had fifty-one shops with 195 presses. This trend made it virtually impossible for journeymen to rise into the ranks of the masters. About the only way for a worker to get ahead in the craft was to marry a master’s widow, for masterships had become hereditary privileges, passed on from husband to wife and from father to son.

由于师傅们越来越倾向于雇用“雇工”（alloués），即那些资质不足的印刷工，他们没有经过学徒期，而学徒期原则上是师傅晋升为师傅的必要条件。这些“雇工”仅仅是廉价劳动力，被排除在行业上层之外，其低下的地位被1723年的一项法令所固定。他们的卑微从名称中便可见一斑：他们是“雇工”（à louer ），而非师傅的“伙伴”（compagnos）。他们体现了劳动逐渐商品化而非伙伴关系化的趋势。因此，孔塔在印刷工的艰难时期完成了他的学徒期并撰写了他的回忆录，当时圣塞韦林街印刷厂的工人们面临着被行业顶层拒之门外、被底层淹没的危险。

The journeymen also felt threatened from below because the masters tended increasingly to hire alloués, or underqualified printers, who had not undergone the apprenticeship that made a journeyman eligible, in principle, to advance to a mastership. The alloués were merely a source of cheap labor, excluded from the upper ranks of the trade and fixed, in their inferior status, by an edict of 1723. Their degradation stood out in their name: they were à louer (for hire), not compagnons (journeymen) of the master. They personified the tendency of labor to become a commodity instead of a partnership. Thus Contat served his apprenticeship and wrote his memoirs when times were hard for journeymen printers, when the men in the shop in the rue Saint-Séverin stood in danger of being cut off from the top of the trade and swamped from the bottom.

从纳沙泰尔印刷公司（Société typographique de Neuchâtel，简称STN）的档案中，我们可以了解这种普遍趋势如何在实际的印刷作坊中体现出来。诚然，STN是一家瑞士公司，而且在孔塔特撰写回忆录七年后（1762年）才开始营业。但十八世纪各地的印刷实践本质上是相同的。STN的档案在数十个细节上与孔塔特的描述相符。（档案中甚至提到了同一位工头科拉斯，他曾在皇家印刷厂短暂地指导过杰罗姆，并在1779年短暂地负责过STN的印刷作坊。）这些档案也提供了早期现代印刷大师如何雇佣、管理和解雇印刷工人的唯一幸存记录。

How this general tendency became manifest in an actual workshop may be seen from the papers of the Société typographique de Neuchâtel (STN). To be sure, the STN was Swiss, and it did not begin business until seven years after Contat wrote his memoirs (1762). But printing practices were essentially the same way everywhere in the eighteenth century. The STN’s archives conform in dozens of details to Contat’s account of his experience. (They even mention the same shop foreman, Colas, who supervised Jerome for a while at the Imprimerie Royale and took charge of the STN’s shop for a brief stint in 1779.) And they provide the only surviving record of the way masters hired, managed, and fired printers in the early modern era.

STN的工资簿显示，工人们通常只在店里待几个月。 ⁶他们离开的原因有：和老板吵架、打架、想去更远的地方闯荡一番，或者没活干了。排字工是按工作量雇佣的，用印刷行话来说就是“labeur”或“ouvrage”。他们完成一项工作后，经常会被解雇，为了维持店里两个部门——排字区（casse）和印刷车间（presse）——的平衡，也必须解雇一些印刷工（通常两个排字工排的字足够两个印刷工一组工作）。工头接新活的时候，就会招新人。这种雇佣和解雇的速度如此之快，以至于每周的工人都不一样。杰罗姆在圣塞韦兰街的工友们似乎也同样不稳定。他们也受雇从事特定的工作，有时会因为与资产阶级发生争执而辞职——这种现象十分普遍，以至于在孔塔特（Contat）的叙述附录的俚语词汇表中专门有一条词条来解释：emporter son Saint Jean（带走你的工具或辞职）。如果一个人只在店里待了一年，就会被称为“ ancien” （老家伙）。其他俚语则反映了当时的工作氛围：une chèvre capitale（暴怒）、se donner la gratte（打架）、prendre la barbe（喝醉）、faire la déroute（去酒吧狂欢）、promener sa chape（偷懒）、faire des loups（欠债）^。7

The STN’s wage book shows that workers usually stayed in the shop for only a few months.⁶ They left because they quarreled with the master, they got in fights, they wanted to pursue their fortune in shops further down the road, or they ran out of work. Compositors were hired by the job, labeur or ouvrage in printer’s slang. When they finished a job, they frequently were fired, and a few pressmen had to be fired as well in order to maintain the balance between the two halves of the shop, the casse or composing sector and the presse or pressroom (two compositors usually set enough type to occupy a team of two pressmen.) When the foreman took on new jobs, he hired new hands. The hiring and firing went on at such a fierce pace that the work force was rarely the same from one week to the next. Jerome’s fellow workers in the rue Saint-Séverin seem to have been equally volatile. They, too, were hired for specific labeurs, and they sometimes walked off the job after quarrels with the bourgeois—a practice common enough to have its own entry in the glossary of their slang which Contat appended to his narrative: emporter son Saint Jean (to carry off your set of tools or quit). A man was known as an ancien if he remained in the shop for only a year. Other slang terms suggest the atmosphere in which the work took place: une chèvre capitale (a fit of rage), se donner la gratte (to get in a fight), prendre la barbe (to get drunk), faire la déroute (to go pub crawling), promener sa chape (to knock off work), faire des loups (to pile up debts).⁷

从STN的工资簿中可以统计到的收入和产出数据中，暴力、酗酒和旷工现象都显露无疑。印刷工人的工作时间极不稳定，有时一周的工作量是另一周的两倍，每周的工作天数从四天到六天不等，每天的工作时间也从凌晨四点到接近中午不等。为了控制这种不规律的工作，工人们会寻找具备两个重要品质的人：勤奋和节制。如果他们恰好技术娴熟，那就更好了。日内瓦的一位招聘代理用典型的措辞推荐了一位愿意前往纳沙泰尔的排字工：“他是个好工人，能胜任任何工作，从不酗酒，而且工作勤奋。” ⁸

The violence, drunkenness, and absenteeism show up in the statistics of income and output one can compile from the STN’s wage book. Printers worked in erratic spurts—twice as much in one week as in another, the weeks varying from four to six days and the days beginning anywhere from four in the morning until nearly noon. In order to keep the irregularity within bounds, the masters sought out men with two supreme traits: assiduousness and sobriety. If they also happened to be skilled, so much the better. A recruiting agent in Geneva recommended a compositor who was willing to set out for Neuchâtel in typical terms: “He is a good worker, capable of doing any job he gets, not at all a drunkard and assiduous at his labor.”⁸

由于纳沙泰尔本地劳动力不足，且法国巡回印刷活动中的印刷工人有时也会短缺，STN不得不依靠招聘人员。招聘人员和雇主之间的信件往来揭示了当时人们对十八世纪工匠的普遍看法：他们懒惰、轻浮、放荡不羁且不可靠。由于他们不可信赖，招聘人员不应借钱给他们旅费，雇主可以扣留他们的财物作为押金，以防他们领完工资后潜逃。由此可见，无论他们是否勤奋工作、是否需要养家糊口或是否生病，都可以毫不犹豫地解雇他们。STN像订购纸张和活字一样，将工匠们“成批”订购。它抱怨说，里昂的一位招聘人员“送来一对夫妇，他们的状况非常糟糕，我们不得不把他们送走” ⁹ ，并斥责他没有检查货物：“你送来的两个人虽然平安到达，但病得很重，可能会传染给其他人；所以我们没能雇用他们。城里没人愿意给他们提供住处。因此，他们又离开了，前往贝桑松，准备去医院自首。” ¹⁰里昂的一位书商建议他们在印刷淡季解雇大部分工人，以便增加法国东部的劳动力供应，“从而更好地控制一群我们无法驾驭的桀骜不驯的工人。” ¹¹ 在欧洲的某些时期，学徒和师傅或许曾像幸福的家庭一样生活在一起，但在十八世纪的法国和瑞士的印刷厂里，这种情况并不常见。

The STN relied on recruiters because it did not have an adequate labor pool in Neuchâtel and the streams of printers on the typographical tours de France sometimes ran dry. The recruiters and employers exchanged letters that reveal a common set of assumptions about eighteenth-century artisans: they were lazy, flighty, dissolute, and unreliable. They could not be trusted, so the recruiter should not loan them money for travel expenses and the employer could keep their belongings as a kind of security deposit in case they skipped off after collecting their pay. It followed that they could be discarded without compunction, whether or not they had worked diligently, had families to support, or fell sick. The STN ordered them in “assortments” just as it ordered paper and type. It complained that a recruiter in Lyon “sent us a couple in such a bad state that we were obliged to ship them off”⁹ and lectured him about failing to inspect the goods: “Two of those whom you have sent to us have arrived all right, but so sick that they could infect all the rest; so we haven’t been able to hire them. No one in town wanted to give them lodging. They have therefore left again and took the route for Besançon, in order to turn themselves in at the hôpital.” ¹⁰ A bookseller in Lyon advised them to fire most of their men during a slack period in their printing in order to flood the labor supply in eastern France and “give us more power over a wild and undisciplinable race, which we cannot control.” ¹¹ Journeymen and masters may have lived together as members of a happy family at some time somewhere in Europe, but not in the printing houses of eighteenth-century France and Switzerland.

孔塔本人相信这样的国家曾经存在过。他在描述杰罗姆的学徒生涯时，首先提及了一个黄金时代：印刷术刚刚发明，印刷工人作为“共和国”中自由平等的成员生活，这个共和国遵循自身的法律和传统，秉持着兄弟般的“联合与友谊”精神。 ¹²他声称，这个共和国仍然以每个印刷作坊的工人协会或小团体的形式存在。但政府已经解散了各种工会；工人队伍被“放鸽子”精简；学徒被排除在师傅之外；而师傅们则退隐到一个与世隔绝的、充满高级料理和早午餐的世界。圣塞韦林街的师傅吃着不同的食物，过着不同的生活，说着不同的语言。他的妻子和女儿与世俗的牧师们厮混。他们养着宠物。显然，资产阶级属于另一种亚文化——这种亚文化最根本的含义就是他们不工作。在引出他对猫咪屠杀事件的描述时，孔塔明确指出了贯穿整个叙事的工人和主人世界之间的对比：“工人、学徒，每个人都在工作。只有主人才能享受美梦。这让杰罗姆和莱维耶感到愤恨。他们决心不再做唯一的苦命人。他们希望自己的主人成为他们的伙伴（ascociés）。” ¹³也就是说，这两个男孩想要恢复一个主人和工人友好合作的美好过去。他们或许也想到了近年来小型印刷作坊的消亡。于是，他们杀死了猫。

Contat himself believed that such a state had once existed. He began his description of Jerome’s apprenticeship by invoking a golden age when printing was first invented and printers lived as free and equal members of a “republic,” governed by its own laws and traditions in a spirit of fraternal “union and friendship.”¹² He claimed that the republic still survived in the form of the chapelle or workers’ association in each shop. But the government had broken up general associations; the ranks had been thinned by alloués; the journeymen had been excluded from masterships; and the masters had withdrawn into a separate world of haute cuisine and grasses matinées. The master in the rue Saint-Séverin ate different food, kept different hours, and talked a different language. His wife and daughters dallied with worldly abbés. They kept pets. Clearly, the bourgeois belonged to a different subculture—one which meant above all that he did not work. In introducing his account of the cat massacre, Contat made explicit the contrast between the worlds of worker and master that ran throughout the narrative: “Workers, apprentices, everyone works. Only the masters and mistresses enjoy the sweetness of sleep. That makes Jerome and Léveillé resentful. They resolve not to be the only wretched ones. They want their master and mistress as associates (associés).” ¹³ That is, the boys wanted to restore a mythical past when masters and men worked in friendly association. They also may have had in mind the more recent extinction of the smaller printing shops. So they killed the cats.

但为什么是猫？为什么杀猫这件事如此滑稽？这些问题将我们从对早期现代劳动关系的思考引向了民间仪式和象征意义这一晦涩的主题。

But why cats? And why was the killing so funny? Those questions take us beyond the consideration of early modern labor relations and into the obscure subject of popular ceremonies and symbolism.

民俗学家让历史学家们熟悉了早期现代人用来划分历法周期的各种仪式。^其中 最重要的便是狂欢节和斋戒期的循环，前者是狂欢作乐的时期，后者则是禁欲的时期。在狂欢节期间，普通民众会打破常规的行为准则，以喧闹的游行来颠覆社会秩序。狂欢节也是青年团体，尤其是学徒们尽情狂欢的时刻。他们会组成由假扮的修道院长或国王统治的“修道院”，举行滑稽的游行，伴着粗俗的音乐，以此来羞辱戴绿帽的丈夫、被妻子殴打的丈夫、嫁给比自己年龄小的新娘，或其他任何违背传统规范的人。狂欢节是欢笑、性暗示和年轻人肆意妄为的旺季——在这个时期，年轻人会以有限的越轨行为试探社会界限，之后又会被重新纳入秩序、顺从和斋戒期严肃的世界中。狂欢节在忏悔星期二或忏悔星期二结束，届时一个稻草人偶，即狂欢节国王或卡拉曼特兰，会被进行仪式性的审判和处决。猫在一些狂欢节表演中扮演着重要的角色。在勃艮第，人群将虐待猫的行为融入到他们粗犷的音乐中。年轻人一边嘲笑戴绿帽的男人或其他受害者，一边传递一只猫，撕扯它的皮毛，让它嚎叫。他们称之为“Faire le chat”（虐待猫）。德国人称这种狂欢节表演为“Katzenmusik”（猫音乐），这个词可能来源于受虐猫的嚎叫声。 ¹⁵

Folklorists have made historians familiar with the ceremonial cycles that marked off the calendar year for early modern man.¹⁴ The most important of these was the cycle of carnival and Lent, a period of revelry followed by a period of abstinence. During carnival the common people suspended the normal rules of behavior and ceremoniously reversed the social order or turned it upside down in riotous procession. Carnival was a time for cutting up by youth groups, particularly apprentices, who organized themselves in “abbeys” ruled by a mock abbot or king and who staged charivaris or burlesque processions with rough music in order to humiliate cuckolds, husbands who had been beaten by their wives, brides who had married below their age group, or someone else who personified the infringement of traditional norms. Carnival was high season for hilarity, sexuality, and youth run riot—a time when young people tested social boundaries by limited outbursts of deviance, before being reassimilated in the world of order, submission, and Lentine seriousness. It came to an end on Shrove Tuesday or Mardi Gras, when a straw mannequin, King Carnival or Caramantran, was given a ritual trial and execution. Cats played an important part in some charivaris. In Burgundy, the crowd incorporated cat torture into its rough music. While mocking a cuckold or some other victim, the youths passed around a cat, tearing its fur to make it howl. Faire le chat, they called it. The Germans called charivaris Katzenmusik, a term that may have been derived from the howls of tortured cats.¹⁵

在6月24日夏至日举行的圣约翰洗者节庆典中，猫也扮演着重要的角色。人们燃起篝火，跳过火堆，围绕篝火跳舞，并将具有魔力的物品投入火中，祈求来年平安顺利。猫是人们最喜欢的物品之一——装在袋子里的猫、用绳子吊起来的猫，或是被绑在火刑柱上烧死的猫。巴黎人喜欢成袋成袋地焚烧猫，而圣沙蒙的库里莫人（ Courimauds ，意为“追猫者”）则更喜欢在街上追逐燃烧的猫。在勃艮第和洛林的部分地区，人们围绕着一根燃烧的五月柱跳舞，柱子上绑着一只猫。在梅斯地区，人们一次将十几只猫放在篮子里，放在篝火上焚烧。这项仪式曾在梅斯城内隆重举行，直至1765年被废除。城中显贵列队抵达大索尔西广场，点燃柴堆，驻军的步枪兵围成一圈鸣枪，而猫咪们则在火焰中尖叫着消失。尽管各地的习俗略有不同，但仪式的要素却如出一辙：篝火、猫咪，以及一种滑稽的猎巫氛围^。16

Cats also figured in the cycle of Saint John the Baptist, which took place on June 24, at the time of the summer solstice. Crowds made bonfires, jumped over them, danced around them, and threw into them objects with magical power, hoping to avoid disaster and obtain good fortune during the rest of the year. A favorite object was cats—cats tied up in bags, cats suspended from ropes, or cats burned at the stake. Parisians liked to incinerate cats by the sackful, while the Courimauds (cour a miaud or cat chasers) of Saint Chamond preferred to chase a flaming cat through the streets. In parts of Burgundy and Lorraine they danced around a kind of burning May pole with a cat tied to it. In the Metz region they burned a dozen cats at a time in a basket on top of a bonfire. The ceremony took place with great pomp in Metz itself, until it was abolished in 1765. The town dignitaries arrived in procession at the Place du Grand-Saulcy, lit the pyre, and a ring of riflemen from the garrison fired off volleys while the cats disappeared screaming in the flames. Although the practice varied from place to place, the ingredients were everywhere the same: a feu de joie (bonfire), cats, and an aura of hilarious witch-hunting.¹⁶

除了这些涉及整个社群的普遍仪式外，工匠们还会庆祝一些与自身行业相关的特殊仪式。印刷工们会举行仪式和宴会，以纪念他们的守护圣人——圣约翰福音书作者，仪式既包括12月27日的圣约翰节，也包括他殉道周年纪念日——5月6日的圣约翰·波特·拉丁节。到了18世纪，工匠们已经将学徒排除在敬奉这位圣人的兄弟会之外，但学徒们仍然在他们的小教堂里举行仪式。17^在 11月11日的圣马丁节，他们会举行模拟审判，随后举行宴会。孔塔特解释说，小教堂就像一个微型的“共和国”，按照自己的行为准则进行管理。当工人违反准则时，作为小教堂负责人而非管理层成员的工头会在登记簿上记录罚款：未熄灭的蜡烛罚款5苏；斗殴罚款3里弗尔；侮辱教堂名誉，罚款三里弗尔；以此类推。在圣马丁节那天，工头宣读罚款并收取。工人们有时会向由教堂“老前辈”组成的滑稽法庭申诉，但最终他们还是得在更多的抱怨、工具敲击声和哄堂大笑中交出罚款。罚款被用来在教堂最喜欢的酒馆里买吃喝，在那里，他们一直狂欢到深夜^。18

In addition to these general ceremonies, which involved entire communities, artisans celebrated ceremonies peculiar to their craft. Printers processed and feasted in honor of their patron, Saint John the Evangelist, both on his saint’s day, December 27, and on the anniversary of his martyrdom, May 6, the festival of Saint Jean Porte Latine. By the eighteenth century, the masters had excluded the journeymen from the confraternity devoted to the saint, but the journeymen continued to hold ceremonies in their chapels.¹⁷ On Saint Martin’s day, November 11, they held a mock trial followed by a feast. Contat explained that the chapel was a tiny “republic,” which governed itself according to its own code of conduct. When a worker violated the code, the foreman, who was the head of the chapel and not part of the management, entered a fine in a register: leaving a candle lit, five sous; brawling, three livres; insulting the good name of the chapel, three livres; and so on. On Saint Martin’s, the foreman read out the fines and collected them. The workers sometimes appealed their cases before a burlesque tribunal composed of the chapel’s “ancients,” but in the end they had to pay up amidst more bleating, banging of tools, and riotous laughter. The fines went for food and drink in the chapel’s favorite tavern, where the hell-raising continued until late in the night.¹⁸

税收和共餐是教堂其他所有仪式的共同特征。特殊的税费和宴席标志着一个人进入店铺（bienvenue）、离开店铺（conduite），甚至结婚 （droit de chevet）。最重要的是，它们标志着年轻人从学徒成长为正式工匠的过程。康塔特描述了其中的四种仪式，最重要的分别是第一个仪式——“领围裙”和最后一个仪式——杰罗姆正式成为正式工匠的仪式。

Taxation and commensality characterized all the other ceremonies of the chapel. Special dues and feasts marked a man’s entry into the shop (bienvenue), his exit (conduite), and even his marriage (droit de chevet). Above all, they punctuated a youth’s progress from apprentice to journeyman. Contat described four of these rites, the most important being the first, called the taking of the apron, and the last, Jerome’s initiation as a full-fledged compagnon.

杰罗姆加入店里后不久，就举行了领围裙仪式（la prise de tablier） 。他必须先缴纳六里弗尔（约相当于普通工匠三天的工资）到公款池里，工匠们也会自掏腰包补足差额（faire la reconnaissance）。之后，小伙子们会前往他们最喜欢的酒馆——位于于谢特街的“花篮酒馆”（Le Panier Fleury）。他们派人去采购食材，回来时满载着面包和肉，还向附近的店主们讲解了哪些肉块值得印刷工享用，哪些肉块可以留给鞋匠。工匠们默默地聚集在酒馆二楼一间专门的房间里，手里拿着酒杯，围着杰罗姆。副工头拿着围裙走了过来，后面跟着两位“老前辈”，分别来自店里的“部门”——收银台和压榨台。他将那条用密织亚麻布新做的围裙递给工头，工头牵着杰罗姆的手，领他走到房间中央，副工头和“老前辈”们跟在后面。工头简短地致辞后，将围裙披在杰罗姆头上，系好背后的带子，众人举杯祝愿这位新成员健康成长。随后，杰罗姆被安排坐在餐桌的首位，与教堂的显贵们同席。其他人则争先恐后地寻找最佳位置，狼吞虎咽地吃着食物，不时喊着要更多。几轮巨型餐点过后，他们开始闲聊——康塔特让我们得以旁听：

The taking of the apron (la prise de tablier) occurred soon after Jerome joined the shop. He had to pay six livres (about three days’ wages for an ordinary journeyman) into a kitty, which the journeymen supplemented by small payments of their own (faire la reconnaissance). Then the chapel repaired to its favorite tavern, Le Panier Fleury in the rue de la Huchette. Emissaries were dispatched to procure provisions and returned loaded down with bread and meat, having lectured the shopkeepers of the neighborhood on which cuts were worthy of typographers and which could be left for cobblers. Silent and glass in hand, the journeymen gathered around Jerome in a special room on the second floor of the tavern. The subforeman approached, carrying the apron and followed by two “ancients,” one from each of the “estates” of the shop, the casse and the presse. He handed the apron, newly made from close-woven linen, to the foreman, who took Jerome by the hand and led him to the center of the room, the subforeman and “ancients” falling in behind. The foreman made a short speech, placed the apron over Jerome’s head and tied the strings behind him, as everyone drank to the health of the initiate. Jerome was then given a seat with the chapel dignitaries at the head of the table. The rest rushed for the best places they could find and fell on the food. They gobbled and guzzled and called out for more. After several Gargantuan rounds, they settled down to shop talk—and Contat lets us listen in:

终于，在数小时的豪饮和喧闹之后，清晨时分，工人们散去——尽管醉醺醺的，但仪式感依然保留到最后：“晚上好，我们的工头先生”；“晚上好，各位拼贴工”；“晚上好，各位印刷工”；“晚上好，杰罗姆”。文中解释说，在杰罗姆被正式接纳为熟练工之前，人们会直呼他的名字^。19

At last, early in the morning after hours of swilling and shouting, the workers separated—sotted but ceremonial to the end: “Bonsoir, Monsieur notre prote [foreman]”; Bonsoir, Messieurs les compositeurs”; “Bonsoir, Messieurs les imprimeurs”; “Bonsoir Jerome.” The text explains that Jerome will be called by his first name until he is received as a journeyman.¹⁹

四年后，在经历了两次中间的“入职仪式”（即“入职证书”和“入职银行证书”）以及大量的“欺凌”之后，这一刻终于到来了。那些人不仅折磨杰罗姆，嘲笑他的无知，让他白跑一趟，捉弄他，还给他安排各种繁重的杂务；他们甚至拒绝教他任何东西。他们不想在已经人满为患的劳动力市场里再添一个学徒，所以杰罗姆只能自学这门手艺。工作、伙食、住宿、睡眠不足，这一切足以把一个男孩逼疯，或者至少让他离开这家店。然而，事实上，这都是司空见惯的待遇，不必太过认真。康塔特以轻松诙谐的笔调叙述了杰罗姆的种种遭遇，这让人联想到一种常见的喜剧题材——“学徒的苦难”。²⁰这些 “苦难岁月”（misères）以打油诗或传单的形式，滑稽地描绘了工匠们都熟悉且津津乐道的人生阶段。这是一个过渡阶段，标志着从童年到成年的转变。年轻人必须努力熬过这个阶段，才能真正“交够”自己的“学费”——印刷工们除了捉弄学徒之外，还会要求支付实际的“工资”，称为“bienvenues”或“quatre heures” ——才能正式成为某个职业团体的一员。在此之前，他生活在一种流动或过渡的状态中，通过自己的一些“恶作剧”来试探成人的习俗。他的长辈们容忍他的恶作剧，在印刷行业中被称为“copies”和“joberies”，因为他们认为这是年轻人需要经历的“青春期”，才能安定下来。一旦安定下来，他就会内化自己行业的习俗，并获得新的身份，这通常以改名来象征^。21

That moment came four years later, after two intermediary cere-monies (the admission a l’ouvrage and the admission à la banque) and a vast amount of hazing. Not only did the men torment Jerome, mocking his ignorance, sending him on wild goose chases, making him the butt of practical jokes, and overwhelming him with nasty chores; they also refused to teach him anything. They did not want another journeyman in their over-flooded labor pool, so Jerome had to pick up the tricks of the trade by himself. The work, the food, the lodging, the lack of sleep, it was enough to drive a boy mad, or at least out of the shop. In fact, however, it was standard treatment and should not be taken too seriously. Contat recounted the catalogue of Jerome’s troubles in a light-hearted manner, which suggested a stock comic genre, the misère des apprentis.²⁰ The misères provided farcical accounts, in doggerel verse or broadsides, of a stage in life that was familiar and funny to everyone in the artisanate. It was a transitional stage, which marked the passage from childhood to adulthood. A young man had to sweat his way through it so that he would have paid his dues—the printers demanded actual payments, called bienvenues or quatre heures, in addition to razzing the apprentices—when he reached full membership in a vocational group. Until he arrived at that point, he lived in a fluid or liminal state, trying out adult conventions by subjecting them to some hell-raising of his own. His elders tolerated his pranks, called copies and joberies in the printing trade, because they saw them as wild oats, which needed to be sewn before he could settle down. Once settled, he would have internalized the conventions of his craft and acquired a new identity, which was often symbolized by a change in his name.²¹

杰罗姆通过了最后的仪式—— 结伴入伙，成为了一名正式的工匠。仪式的形式与其他仪式相同：候选人缴纳入会费后，工匠们会一起享用美食美酒，并互相帮忙进行侦察。但这一次，康塔特总结了工头讲话的内容：²²

Jerome became a journeyman by passing through the final rite, compagnonnage. It took the same form as the other ceremonies, a celebration over food and drink after the candidate paid an initiation fee and the journeymen chipped in with reconnaissance. But this time Contat gave a summary of the foreman’s speech:²²

在故事的其余部分，虚伪被揭示为资产阶级的主要特征，他们是迷信的宗教狂热分子。他们生活在一个虚伪的资产阶级道德世界里。工人们将他们的“共和国”与这个世界以及其他工匠群体——比如吃劣质肉的鞋匠，以及每当印刷工人（分为“等级”，即“印刷工”和“印刷工”）在周日去乡间酒馆游玩时总是会与人发生争执的石匠或木匠——区分开来。杰罗姆加入一个“等级”后，便融入了一种风气。他认同了某种手艺；作为一名正式的排字工，他获得了一个新的名字。经历了人类学意义上的完整成人礼后，他成为了一位先生^。23

Hypocrisy turned out in the rest of the narrative to be the main characteristic of the bourgeois, a superstitious religious bigot. He occupied a separate world of pharasaical bourgeois morality. The workers defined their “republic” against that world and against other journeymen’s groups as well—the cobblers, who ate inferior cuts of meat, and the masons or carpenters who were always good for a brawl when the printers, divided into “estates” (the casse and the presse) toured country taverns on Sundays. In entering an “estate,” Jerome assimilated an ethos. He identified himself with a craft; and as a full-fledged journeyman compositor, he received a new name. Having gone through a rite of passage in the full, anthropological sense of the term, he became a Monsieur.²³

仪式就此打住。那么猫呢？首先要说明的是，猫身上有一种难以言喻的魅力，一种自古埃及时代起就令世人着迷的神秘特质。人们能从猫的眼神中感受到一种类人的智慧。人们有时会将猫在夜里的嚎叫误认为是人类的尖叫，仿佛是从人类内心深处某种原始的、本能的动物本性中迸发出的。猫吸引了像波德莱尔这样的诗人，以及像马奈这样的画家，他们想要表达动物身上的人性，以及人类——尤其是女性——身上的动物性^。24

So much for ceremonies. What about cats? It should be said at the outset that there is an indefinable je ne sais quoi about cats, a mysterious something that has fascinated mankind since the time of the ancient Egyptians. One can sense a quasi-human intelligence behind a cat’s eyes. One can mistake a cat’s howl at night for a human scream, torn from some deep, visceral part of man’s animal nature. Cats appealed to poets like Baudelaire and painters like Manet, who wanted to express the humanity in animals along with the animality of men-and especially of women.²⁴

这种模糊的本体论立场，一种跨越概念范畴的状态，赋予了某些动物——猪、狗、食火鸡以及猫——在某些文化中一种与禁忌相关的神秘力量。玛丽·道格拉斯认为，这就是为什么犹太人不吃猪肉；埃德蒙·利奇则认为，这就是为什么英国人会用“狗娘养的”（son-of-a-bitch）而不是“牛娘养的”（son-of-a-cow）来互相侮辱。25某些动物适合用来咒骂，正如列维-斯特劳斯在其著名公式中所说的“适合思考”一样。我还要补充一点，另一些动物——尤其是猫——则适合用来举行仪式。^它们具有仪式价值。你不能用牛来表演滑稽剧（charivari），但你可以用猫来表演：你可以决定“ faire le chat” （做 猫音乐，katzenmusik）。

This ambiguous ontological position, a straddling of conceptual categories, gives certain animals-pigs, dogs, and cassowaries as well as cats—in certain cultures an occult power associated with the taboo. That is why Jews do not eat pigs, according to Mary Douglas, and why Englishmen can insult one another by saying “son-of-a-bitch” rather than “son-of-a-cow,” according to Edmund Leach.²⁵ Certain animals are good for swearing, just as they are “good for thinking” in Lévi-Strauss’s famous formula. I would add that others—cats in particular—are good for staging ceremonies. They have ritual value. You cannot make a charivari with a cow. You do it with cats: you decide to faire le chat, to make Katzenmusik.

在近代早期的欧洲，虐待动物，尤其是猫，曾是一种流行的娱乐方式。只需看看霍加斯的《残酷的阶段》就能明白这一点，一旦你开始关注，就会发现虐待动物的现象无处不在。从17世纪初西班牙的《堂吉诃德》到19世纪末法国的《天竺葵》，杀猫一直是文学作品中常见的题材。 26 文学作品中对虐待动物的描写远非少数精神错乱的作家的虐待狂幻想，而是反映了当时流行文化的深层思潮，正如米哈伊尔·巴赫金在其对拉伯雷的研究中所述。 ²⁷各种民族志报告都证实了这一观点。例如，在瑟米尔的“周日烤肉节”（dimanche des brandons）上，孩子们会把猫绑在杆子上，放在篝火上烤。在普罗旺斯地区艾克斯的“圣母节”（Fête-Dieu）上，人们会在“猫的游戏”（jeu du chat）中把猫抛向空中，然后摔在地上。他们会用“像猫一样忍耐，即使爪子被拔掉”或“像猫一样忍耐，即使爪子被烤”这样的表达。英国人也同样残忍。在伦敦宗教改革期间，一群新教徒把一只猫剃光毛，让它看起来像个牧师，给它穿上仿制的法衣，然后把它吊死在切普赛德的绞刑架上。 ²⁸类似的例子不胜枚举，但重点应该很清楚：仪式性地杀害猫并不罕见。相反，当杰罗姆和他的同伴们在圣塞韦林街上尝试并绞死他们能找到的所有猫时，他们正是利用了他们文化中一个共同的元素。但是，在当时的文化中，猫究竟具有怎样的意义呢？

The torture of animals, especially cats, was a popular amusement throughout early modern Europe. You have only to look at Hogarth’s Stages of Cruelty to see its importance, and once you start looking you see people torturing animals everywhere. Cat killings provided a common theme in literature, from Don Quixote in early seventeenth-century Spain to Germinal in late nineteenth-century France.²⁶ Far from being a sadistic fantasy on the part of a few half-crazed authors, the literary versions of cruelty to animals expressed a deep current of popular culture, as Mikhail Bakhtin has shown in his study of Rabelais.²⁷ All sorts of ethnographic reports confirm that view. On the dimanche des brandons in Semur, for example, children used to attach cats to poles and roast them over bonfires. In the jeu du chat at the Fete-Dieu in Aix-en-Provence, they threw cats high in the air and smashed them on the ground. They used expressions like “patient as a cat whose claws are being pulled out” or “patient as a cat whose paws are being grilled.” The English were just as cruel. During the Reformation in London, a Protestant crowd shaved a cat to look like a priest, dressed it in mock vestments, and hanged it on the gallows at Cheapside.²⁸ It would be possible to string out many other examples, but the point should be clear: there was nothing unusual about the ritual killing of cats. On the contrary, when Jerome and his fellow workers tried and hanged all the cats they could find in the rue Saint-Severin, they drew on a common element in their culture. But what significance did that culture attribute to cats?

要弄清这个问题，就必须翻阅民间故事、迷信、谚语和民间医学的汇编。这些资料丰富多样、浩瀚无垠，但却极其难以驾驭。虽然其中许多可以追溯到中世纪，但真正能确定年代的却寥寥无几。它们大多是由民俗学家在十九世纪末二十世纪初收集整理的，那时，根深蒂固的民间传说仍然抵制着印刷文字的影响。然而，这些汇编并不能证明十八世纪中叶巴黎的印刷厂里存在某种特定的习俗或做法。我们只能断言，印刷工人的生活和呼吸都浸润在一种传统习俗和信仰的氛围中，这种氛围渗透到方方面面。当然，各地情况并不相同——直到十九世纪末，法国仍然是一个由各个地区组成的松散国家，而非一个统一的民族国家——但到处都能找到一些共同的主题。其中最常见的就与猫有关。早期现代法国人可能比其他任何动物都更频繁地使用猫作为象征物，而且他们使用猫的方式也各不相同，尽管存在地域差异，但为了便于讨论，我们可以将这些方式归为一类。

To get a grip on that question, one must rummage through collections of folktales, superstitions, proverbs, and popular medicine. The material is rich, varied, and vast but extremely hard to handle. Although much of it goes back to the Middle Ages, little can be dated. It was gathered for the most part by folklorists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when sturdy strains of folklore still resisted the influence of the printed word. But the collections do not make it possible to claim that this or that practice existed in the printing houses of mid-eighteenth-century Paris. One can only assert that printers lived and breathed in an atmosphere of traditional customs and beliefs which permeated everything. It was not everywhere the same—France remained a patchwork of pays rather than a unified nation until late in the nineteenth century—but everywhere some common motifs could be found. The commonest were attached to cats. Early modern Frenchmen probably made more symbolic use of cats than of any other animal, and they used them in distinct ways, which can be grouped together for the purposes of discussion, despite the regional peculiarities.

首先，猫象征着巫术。在法国几乎任何地方，夜间遇到猫都可能意味着遭遇魔鬼、他的爪牙，或是外出作恶的女巫。白猫和黑猫一样，无论白天还是夜晚，都可能带来邪恶的预感。在一个典型的故事里，比戈尔的一位农妇遇到了一只走失在田野里的漂亮白猫。她用围裙把猫带回了村子，正当她们来到一位被怀疑是女巫的女人家门口时，猫突然跳了出来，说道：“谢谢你，珍妮。” ²⁹女巫会把自己变成猫，以此来对受害者施咒。有时，尤其是在狂欢节期间，她们会在夜间聚集起来举行可怕的安息日仪式。在化身为一只巨大公猫的魔鬼的指挥下，她们嚎叫、争斗，并进行着骇人的交配。为了避免受到猫的巫术侵害，有一个经典的办法：弄残它。砍断它的尾巴，剪掉它的耳朵，打断它的一条腿，撕扯或烧掉它的皮毛，就能削弱它的邪恶力量。一只受伤的猫不能参加安息日，也不能到外游荡施法。农民们经常用棍棒殴打夜里闯入他们道路的猫，第二天醒来，他们发现被认为是女巫的妇女身上出现了瘀伤——至少在他们村的传说中是这么说的。村民们还讲述了这样的故事：一些农民在谷仓里发现奇怪的猫，为了救牲畜，他们打断了猫的四肢。第二天早上，总会有一个可疑的妇女身上出现断肢。

First and foremost, cats suggested witchcraft. To cross one at night in virtually any corner of France was to risk running into the devil or one of his agents or a witch abroad on an evil errand. White cats could be as satanic as the black, in the daytime as well as at night. In a typical encounter, a peasant woman of Bigorre met a pretty white house cat who had strayed in the fields. She carried it back to the village in her apron, and just as they came to the house of a woman suspected of witchcraft, the cat jumped out, saying “Merci, Jeanne.”²⁹ Witches transformed themselves into cats in order to cast spells on their victims. Sometimes, especially on Mardi Gras, they gathered for hideous sabbaths at night. They howled, fought, and copulated horribly under the direction of the devil himself in the form of a huge tomcat. To protect yourself from sorcery by cats there was one, classic remedy: maim it. Cut its tail, clip its ears, smash one of its legs, tear or burn its fur, and you would break its malevolent power. A maimed cat could not attend a sabbath or wander abroad to cast spells. Peasants frequently cudgeled cats who crossed their paths at night and discovered the next day that bruises had appeared on women believed to be witches—or so it was said in the lore of their village. Villagers also told stories of farmers who found strange cats in barns and broke their limbs to save the cattle. Invariably a broken limb would appear on a suspicious woman the following morning.

猫本身就拥有神秘的力量，这与它们和巫术、邪术的关联无关。在安茹，如果猫进入面包店，面包就发不起来；在布列塔尼，如果猫挡住渔民的去路，渔获就会变质；在贝阿恩，如果猫被活埋，就能清除田里的杂草。除了巫婆的药剂，猫还是各种民间偏方中不可或缺的成分。摔倒后，人们会吸吮刚被砍断的公猫尾巴上的血；治疗肺炎时，人们会把猫耳朵里的血混在红酒里喝；缓解腹痛时，人们会把猫粪混在酒里喝。在布列塔尼，人们甚至可以通过吃掉刚被杀死的、还很热的猫脑来隐身。

Cats possessed occult power independently of their association with witchcraft and deviltry. They could prevent the bread from rising if they entered bakeries in Anjou. They could spoil the catch if they crossed the path of fishermen in Brittany. If buried alive in Béarn, they could clear a field of weeds. They figured as staple ingredients in all kinds of folk medicine aside from witches’ brews. To recover from a bad fall, you sucked the blood out of a freshly amputated tail of a tomcat. To cure yourself from pneumonia, you drank blood from a cat’s ear in red wine. To get over colic, you mixed your wine with cat excrement. You could even make yourself invisible, at leas* in Brittany, by eating the brain of a newly killed cat, provided it was still hot.

猫的力量在特定领域得以展现：家庭，尤其是一家之主。像《穿靴子的猫》这样的民间故事强调了主人与猫的关联，一些迷信习俗也强化了这种观念，例如在主人去世后，给猫的脖子上系上一条黑丝带。杀死一只猫会给主人或家带来厄运。如果猫离开了家，或者不再跳到主人的病床上，主人很可能会去世。但如果一只猫躺在垂死之人的床上，那它可能是魔鬼，正等着把他的灵魂带入地狱。根据十六世纪的一个故事，昆廷镇的一个女孩为了换取一些漂亮的衣服，把灵魂卖给了魔鬼。她死后，抬棺人抬不动她的棺材；他们打开棺盖，一只黑猫跳了出来。猫会给房子带来灾祸。它们经常闷死婴儿。它们能听懂闲言碎语，并且会把这些闲言碎语传播到户外。但只要采取正确的方法，比如在猫爪上涂抹黄油，或者在它们刚来时就残害它们，就能控制它们的力量，甚至将其转化为你的优势。为了保护新房，法国人会将活猫圈养在墙内——从中世纪建筑墙壁中挖掘出的猫骨骼来看，这是一种非常古老的习俗。

There was a specific field for the exercise of cat power: the household and particularly the person of the master or mistress of the house. Folktales like “Puss ’n Boots” emphasized the identification of master and cat, and so did superstitions such as the practice of tying a black ribbon around the neck of a cat whose mistress had died. To kill a cat was to bring misfortune upon its owner or its house. If a cat left a house or stopped jumping on the sickbed of its master or mistress, the person was likely to die. But a cat lying on the bed of a dying man might be the devil, waiting to carry his soul off to hell. According to a sixteenth-century tale, a girl from Quintin sold her soul to the devil in exchange for some pretty clothes. When she died, the pallbearers could not lift her coffin; they opened the lid, and a black cat jumped out. Cats could harm a house. They often smothered babies. They understood gossip and would repeat it out of doors. But their power could be contained or turned to your advantage if you followed the right procedures, such as greasing their paws with butter or maiming them when they first arrived. To protect a new house, Frenchmen enclosed live cats within its walls—a very old rite, judging from cat skeletons that have been exhumed from the walls of medieval buildings.

最后，猫的力量集中体现在家庭生活中最私密的方面：性。法语俚语中的“le chat”、“la chatte”、“le minet”与英语中的“pussy”意思相同，几个世纪以来一直被用作淫秽词汇。法国民间传说赋予猫特殊的地位，将其^作为性隐喻或转喻。早在十五世纪，抚摸猫就被认为是追求女性成功的秘诀。谚语将女性与猫联系起来：“善待猫的人会娶到漂亮的妻子。”如果一个男人爱猫，他就会爱女人；反之亦然：“他爱他的猫，就爱他的妻子。”这是另一句谚语。如果他不爱他的妻子，你可以说他“还有其他猫要鞭打”。想要得到男人的女人应该避免踩到猫尾巴。她可能会推迟婚期一年——在坎佩尔，可能会推迟七年；而在卢瓦尔河谷的部分地区，则会推迟到猫叫声停止的年数。在各地，猫都象征着生育能力和女性的性欲。人们常说女孩“像猫一样坠入爱河”；如果她们怀孕了，就意味着她们“让猫去吃奶酪了”。吃猫本身就能导致怀孕。在一些民间故事中，女孩在炖菜里吃猫肉后会生下小猫。在布列塔尼北部，如果以正确的方式埋葬猫，甚至可以让患病的苹果树结果。

Finally, the power of cats was concentrated on the most intimate aspect of domestic life: sex. Le chat, la chatte, le minet mean the same thing in French slang as “pussy” does in English, and they have served as obscenities for centuries.³⁰ French folklore attaches special importance to the cat as a sexual metaphor or metonym. As far back as the fifteenth century, the petting of cats was recommended for success in courting women. Proverbial wisdom identified women with cats: “He who takes good care of cats will have a pretty wife.” If a man loved cats, he would love women; and vice versa: “As he loves his cat, he loves his wife,” went another proverb. If he did not care for his wife, you could say of him, “He has other cats to whip.” A woman who wanted to get a man should avoid treading on a cat’s tail. She might postpone marriage for a year—or for seven years in Quimper and for as many years as the cat meowed in parts of the Loire Valley. Cats connoted fertility and female sexuality everywhere. Girls were commonly said to be “in love like a cat”; and if they became pregnant, they had “let the cat go to the cheese.” Eating cats could bring on pregnancy in itself. Girls who consumed them in stews gave birth to kittens in several folktales. Cats could even make diseased apple trees bear fruit, if buried in the correct manner in upper Brittany.

从女性的性欲到男性的戴绿帽，这之间的联系十分自然。猫叫声可能来自一场邪恶的狂欢，但也可能是雄猫在伴侣发情时互相咆哮挑衅。然而，它们并不像猫那样叫唤。它们用主人的名字发出挑战，同时还夹杂着对主人的性嘲讽：“雷诺！弗朗索瓦！”“你去哪儿？——去看你的妻子。——去看我的妻子！哈！”然后，雄猫们会像基尔肯尼的野猫一样互相攻击，它们的安息日最终以一场屠杀告终。对话的内容会根据听众的想象力和方言的拟声效果而有所不同，但通常都强调了掠夺性的性欲。³¹ “夜里所有的猫都是灰色的，”这句谚语如此说。十八世纪的一本谚语集对此进行了注释，明确地表达了其中的性暗示：“也就是说，所有女人在夜晚都足够美丽。” ³²足够美丽到什么程度？在近代早期的法国，当猫在夜里嚎叫时，诱惑、强奸和谋杀的回声便在空气中回荡。猫的叫声召唤出了 猫歌，因为在狂欢节前夜——猫最喜欢的安息日——这种寻欢作乐的形式常常是向被戴绿帽的丈夫的窗下嚎叫。

It was an easy jump from the sexuality of women to the cuckolding of men. Caterwauling could come from a satanic orgy, but it might just as well be toms howling defiance at each other when their mates were in heat. They did not call as cats, however. They issued challenges in their masters’ names, along with sexual taunts about their mistresses: “Reno! Francois! ” “Où allez-vous?—Voir la femme à vous.—Voir la femme à moi! Rouah!” (Where are you going?—To see your wife.—To see my wife! Ha!) Then the toms would fly at each other like the cats of Kilkenny, and their sabbath would end in a massacre. The dialogue differed according to the imaginations of the listeners and the onomatopoetic power of their dialect, but it usually emphasized predatory sexuality.³¹ “At night all cats are gray,” went the proverb, and the gloss in an eighteenth-century proverb collection made the sexual hint explicit: “That is to say that all women are beautiful enough at night.”³² Enough for what? Seduction, rape, and murder echoed in the air when the cats howled at night in early modern France. Cat calls summoned up Katzenmusik, for charivaris often took the form of howling under a cuckold’s window on the eve of Mardi Gras, the favorite time for cat sabbaths.

巫术、狂欢、戴绿帽、喧闹派对和屠杀，旧制度时​​期的人们能从猫的嚎叫中听出很多东西。圣塞韦林街的人们究竟听到了什么，我们无从知晓。我们只能断言，猫在法国民间传说中具有巨大的象征意义，而且这些传说丰富、古老且流传甚广，甚至渗透到了印刷作坊。为了确定印刷商是否真的借鉴了他们所掌握的仪式和象征主题，有必要重新审视孔塔的文本。

Witchcraft, orgy, cuckoldry, charivari, and massacre, the men of the Old Regime could hear a great deal in the wail of a cat. What the men of the rue Saint-Séverin actually heard is impossible to say. One can only assert that cats bore enormous symbolic weight in the folklore of France and that the lore was rich, ancient, and widespread enough to have penetrated the printing shop. In order to determine whether the printers actually drew on the ceremonial and symbolic themes available to them, it is necessary to take another look at Contat’s text.

文本从一开始就明确地展现了巫术的主题。杰罗姆和莱维耶彻夜难眠，因为“一些被诅咒的猫整夜都在举行安息日”。 ³³莱维耶的猫叫声加入到普遍的猫叫声中后，“整个街区都惊慌失措。人们认定这些猫一定是某个施了魔法的人的爪牙。”师傅和女师傅考虑过请神灵驱魔。但最终他们决定委托人去捉猫，于是便采用了经典的巫术疗法：致残。这个迷信的、被神父蒙蔽的资产阶级傻瓜竟然把整件事当真了。而对学徒们来说，这只是个玩笑。尤其是莱维耶，他扮演的是一个滑稽的角色，一个假扮的“巫师”，上演着一场虚假的“安息日”，正如孔塔特所设定的那样。学徒们不仅利用师傅的迷信大闹一场，还反过来捉弄他们的女主人。他们用棍棒殴打女主人的使魔“灰姑娘”（la grise），实际上是在指控她是女巫。任何懂行的人都能明白其中的双重含义。

The text made the theme of sorcery explicit from the beginning. Jerome and Léveillé could not sleep because “some bedeviled cats make a sabbath all night long.”³³ After Léveillé added his cat calls to the general caterwauling, “the whole neighborhood is alarmed. It is decided that the cats must be agents of someone casting a spell.” The master and mistress considered summoning the cure to exorcise the place. In deciding instead to commission the cat hunt, they fell back on the classic remedy for witchcraft: maiming. The bourgeois—a superstitious, priest-ridden fool—took the whole business seriously. To the apprentices it was a joke. Léveillé in particular functioned as a joker, a mock “sorcerer” staging a fake “sabbath,” according to the terms chosen by Contat. Not only did the apprentices exploit their master’s superstition in order to run riot at his expense, but they also turned their rioting against their mistress. By bludgeoning her familiar, la grise, they in effect accused her of being the witch. The double joke would not be lost on anyone who could read the traditional language of gesture.

“喧闹派对”的主题为这场闹剧增添了另一层趣味。虽然文中并未明确指出，但暗示女主人与她的牧师——一位“好色的年轻人”——有染。这位牧师熟记了色情经典作品（如《阿雷蒂诺》和《淑女学院》）中的淫秽段落，并经常在她丈夫喋喋不休地谈论他最爱的话题——金钱和宗教——时，向她传授这些内容。在一次与这家人共进的丰盛晚餐上，牧师辩称“给丈夫戴绿帽是一种机智的壮举，而且戴绿帽并非罪恶”。之后，他和女主人在乡间别墅共度良宵。他们完美地契合了印刷厂典型的三角关系：一位老态龙钟的老板、一位中年女主人和她的年轻情人。³⁴这种阴谋诡计将老板塑造成了一个典型的喜剧角色：被戴绿帽的丈夫。于是，工人们的狂欢便演变成了一场喧闹派对。学徒们成功地完成了任务，他们游走在学徒们传统上嘲弄上级的过渡地带，而正式工匠们则以粗犷的音乐回应他们的滑稽举动。整个事件都弥漫着一种喧闹的节日气氛，孔塔特将其描述为一场盛宴： “莱维耶和他的同伴杰罗姆主持着这场盛宴，”他写道，仿佛他们是狂欢节的国王，而殴打猫的行为则等同于狂欢节或圣约翰洗者节上虐待猫咪的习俗。

The theme of charivari provided an additional dimension to the fun. Although it never says so explicitly, the text indicates that the mistress was having an affair with her priest, a “lascivious youth,” who had memorized obscene passages from the classics of pornography—Aretino and L’Academie des dames—and quoted them to her, while her husband droned on about his favorite subjects, money and religion. During a lavish dinner with the family, the priest defended the thesis “that it is a feat of wit to cuckold one’s husband and that cuckolding is not a vice.” Later, he and the wife spent the night together in a country house. They fit perfectly into the typical triangle of printing shops: a doddering old master, a middle-aged mistress, and her youthful lover.³⁴ The intrigue cast the master in the role of a stock comic figure: the cuckold. So the revelry of the workers took the form of a charivari. The apprentices managed it, operating within the liminal area where novitiates traditionally mocked their superiors, and the journeymen responded to their antics in the traditional way, with rough music. A riotous, festival atmosphere runs through the whole episode, which Contat described as a fête: “Léveillé and his comrade Jerome preside over the fête,” he wrote, as if they were kings of a carnival and the cat bashing corresponded to the torturing of cats on Mardi Gras or the fête of Saint John the Baptist.

如同许多狂欢节一样，这场嘉年华以一场模拟审判和处决告终。这种滑稽的法律主义对印刷工人来说驾轻就熟，因为他们每年都会在圣马丁节上上演自己的模拟审判。届时，印刷厂会与老板清算账目，并成功地激怒了他。印刷厂不能直接谴责老板，否则就等同于公开违抗命令，并冒着被解雇的风险。（所有资料，包括STN的文件，都表明老板经常因为工人的傲慢和不当行为而解雇他们。事实上，莱维耶后来就因为一个更公开地攻击资产阶级的恶作剧而被解雇。）因此，工人们对资产阶级进行了缺席审判，使用了一种象征符号，既能传达他们的意思，又不会过于直白而引发报复。他们审判并绞死了猫。 如果被命令饶恕“灰衣”（ la grise，指印刷厂老板的标志），却在老板眼皮底下把它吊死，那就太过分了。但他们却将这家最受宠的宠物猫作为第一个受害者，他们这样做，也如同按照猫的传说，攻击了这家人本身。当女主人指责他们杀死了灰猫时，他们故作恭敬地回答说：“没有人会做出如此暴行，我们对这家人太过尊重了。” 通过如此精心设计的仪式处死这些猫，他们谴责了这家人，并宣告资产阶级有罪——他们有罪于过度压榨学徒、虐待他们，有罪于让工匠们辛勤劳作却自己过着奢靡的生活，有罪于他们远离作坊，用懒汉们淹没作坊，而不是像一两代人之前的师傅们那样，或者像印刷业初期那个原始的“共和国”里的师傅们那样，与工人们一起劳动、吃饭。这种罪恶感从老板蔓延到作坊，最终蔓延到整个社会体系。或许，工人们通过审判、忏悔和绞死一群奄奄一息的猫，意在嘲讽整个法律和社会秩序。

As in many Mardi Gras, the carnival ended in a mock trial and execution. The burlesque legalism came naturally to the printers because they staged their own mock trials every year at the fête of Saint Martin, when the chapel squared accounts with its boss and succeeded spectacularly in getting his goat. The chapel could not condemn him explicitly without moving into open insubordination and risking dismissal. (All the sources, including the papers of the STN, indicate that masters often fired workers for insolence and misbehavior. Indeed, Léveillé was later fired for a prank that attacked the bourgeois more openly.) So the workers tried the bourgeois in absentia, using a symbol that would let their meaning show through without being explicit enough to justify retaliation. They tried and hanged the cats. It would be going too far to hang la grise under the master’s nose after being ordered to spare it; but they made the favorite pet of the house their first victim, and in doing so they knew they were attacking the house itself, in accordance with the traditions of cat lore. When the mistress accused them of killing la grise, they replied with mock deference that “nobody would be capable of such an outrage and that they have too much respect for that house.” By executing the cats with such elaborate ceremony, they condemned the house and declared the bourgeois guilty—guilty of overworking and underfeeding his apprentices, guilty of living in luxury while his journeymen did all the work, guilty of withdrawing from the shop and swamping it with alloués instead of laboring and eating with the men, as masters were said to have done a generation or two earlier, or in the primitive “republic” that existed at the beginning of the printing industry. The guilt extended from the boss to the house to the whole system. Perhaps in trying, confessing, and hanging a collection of half-dead cats, the workers meant to ridicule the entire legal and social order.

他们无疑感到自身尊严受损，积压的怨恨足以爆发成一场杀戮狂潮。半个世纪后，巴黎的工匠们也以类似的方式暴动，将无差别屠杀与临时成立的民众法庭结合起来。 ³⁵将猫屠杀视为法国大革命九月大屠杀的预演未免荒谬，但早期的暴力爆发确实预示着一场民众起义，尽管它始终局限于象征层面。

They certainly felt debased and had accumulated enough resentment to explode in an orgy of killing. A half-century later, the artisans of Paris would run riot in a similar manner, combining indiscriminate slaughter with improvised popular tribunals.³⁵ It would be absurd to view the cat massacre as a dress rehearsal for the September Massacres of the French Revolution, but the earlier outburst of violence did suggest a popular rebellion, though it remained restricted to the level of symbolism.

猫作为象征，既让人联想到性，也让人联想到暴力，这种组合完美地契合了对女主人的攻击。叙事中，女主人与她最宠爱的猫“灰猫”（la grise）联系在一起。男孩们杀死灰猫，实际上是在攻击她：“这是一件大事，一起谋杀，必须掩盖。”女主人的反应如同遭受了侵犯：“他们从她身边夺走了一只无与伦比的猫，一只她爱到疯狂的猫。”文中将她描述为淫荡且“对猫充满热情”，仿佛她是一只发情的母猫，正值野猫嚎叫、杀戮和强奸的狂欢节。在十八世纪的写作中，直接提及强奸会违反当时普遍遵守的礼仪。事实上，这种象征手法只有保持隐晦才能奏效——既要足够暧昧以蒙蔽主人，又要足够尖锐以刺痛女主人的痛处。但孔塔特使用了强烈的语言。女主人一看到猫被处决，就发出了一声尖叫。随后，她意识到自己失去了尊严，尖叫声戛然而止。工人们假惺惺地向她表示敬意，这时主人来了。“‘啊！这些恶棍！’他说，‘他们不干活，反而杀猫。’夫人对先生说：‘这些坏人杀不了主人，他们杀了我的猫。’……在她看来，就算所有工人都流血，也无法弥补这侮辱。”

Cats as symbols conjured up sex as well as violence, a combination perfectly suited for an attack on the mistress. The narrative identified her with la grise, her chatte favorite. In killing it, the boys struck at her: “It was a matter of consequence, a murder, which had to be hidden.” The mistress reacted as if she had been assaulted : “They ravished from her a cat without an equal, a cat that she loved to madness.” The text described her as lascivious and “impassioned for cats” as if she were a she-cat in heat during a wild cat’s sabbath of howling, killing, and rape. An explicit reference to rape would violate the proprieties that were generally observed in eighteenth-century writing. Indeed, the symbolism would work only if it remained veiled—ambivalent enough to dupe the master and sharp enough to hit the mistress in the quick. But Contat used strong language. As soon as the mistress saw the cat execution she let out a scream. Then the scream was smothered in the realization that she had lost her grise. The workers assured her with feigned sincerity of their respect and the master arrived. “‘Ah! the scoundrels,’ he says. ‘Instead of working they are killing cats.’ Madame to Monsieur: ‘These wicked men can’t kill the masters; they have killed my cat.’ ... It seems to her that all the blood of the workers would not be sufficient to redeem the insult.”

这是一种转喻式的侮辱，相当于十八世纪小学生嘲讽的“啊，你妈的腰带！”。但它的力度更大，也更下流。工人们通过袭击女主人的宠物，象征性地玷污了她。与此同时，他们也对主人进行了莫大的侮辱。他的妻子是他最珍贵的财产，正如她的宠物是她最珍贵的财产一样。男人们杀死了猫，侵犯了资产阶级家庭最私密的宝藏，却毫发无损地逃脱了惩罚。这就是它的妙处所在。象征意义巧妙地掩盖了侮辱的本质，使他们得以逍遥法外。当资产阶级因失去工作而怒火中烧时，他的妻子却不那么迟钝，她几乎是告诉他，工人们性侵了她，还想杀了他。然后，两人都带着屈辱和挫败离开了现场。 “先生和夫人退下了，工人们自由了下来。喜欢热闹的印刷工人们欣喜若狂。这下他们有了一个绝佳的笑料，一份精美的 印刷品，足够他们消磨很长时间了。”

It was metonymic insult, the eighteenth-century equivalent of the modern schoolboy’s taunt: “Ah, your mother’s girdle!” But it was stronger, and more obscene. By assaulting her pet, the workers ravished the mistress symbolically. At the same time, they delivered the supreme insult to their master. His wife was his most precious possession, just as her chatte was hers. In killing the cat, the men violated the most intimate treasure of the bourgeois household and escaped unharmed. That was the beauty of it. The symbolism disguised the insult well enough for them to get away with it. While the bourgeois fumed over the loss of work, his wife, less obtuse, virtually told him that the workers had attacked her sexually and would like to murder him. Then both left the scene in humiliation and defeat. “Monsieur and Madame retire, leaving the workers in liberty. The printers, who love disorder, are in a state of great joy. Here is an ample subject for their laughter, a beautiful copie, which will keep them amused for a long time.”

这是拉伯雷式的笑声。文本强调了它的重要性：“印刷工们懂得如何大笑，这是他们唯一的职业。”米哈伊尔·巴赫金指出，拉伯雷的笑声表达了一种大众文化倾向，在这种文化中，滑稽可笑之事可能演变为暴乱，一种充斥着性与煽动的狂欢文化，其中革命元素可能蕴藏于符号和隐喻之中，也可能像1789年那样，在一场全面起义中爆发。然而，问题依然存在：这场“猫咪大屠杀”究竟有何可笑之处？没有什么比分析笑话或用社会评论来过度解读它更能毁掉一个笑话了。但这个笑话恰恰需要解读——并非因为它可以用来证明工匠们憎恨他们的老板（这或许是适用于所有劳动史时期的真理，尽管十八世纪的历史学家并未充分认识到这一点），而是因为它能帮助我们理解工人是如何通过玩味自身文化主题来赋予自身经历意义的。

This was Rabelaisian laughter. The text insists upon its importance: “The printers know how to laugh, it is their sole occupation.” Mikhail Bakhtin has shown how the laughter of Rabelais expressed a strain of popular culture in which the riotously funny could turn to riot, a carnival culture of sexuality and sedition in which the revolutionary element might be contained within symbols and metaphors or might explode in a general uprising, as in 1789. The question remains, however, what precisely was so funny about the cat massacre? There is no better way to ruin a joke than to analyze it or to overload it with social comment. But this joke cries out for commentary—not because one can use it to prove that artisans hated their bosses (a truism that may apply to all periods of labor history, although it has not been appreciated adequately by eighteenth-century historians), but because it can help one to see how workers made their experience meaningful by playing with themes of their culture.

我们所能了解到的唯一关于猫屠杀的版本，是事后很久由尼古拉斯·孔塔特（Nicolas Contat）记录下来的。他挑选细节，安排事件顺序，并以一种对他而言有意义的方式构建故事框架。但他对意义的理解，如同他从周围的空气中汲取养分一样，自然而然地源于他的文化。他记录下了他与同伴们共同参与的行动。尽管文字描述与它所描述的行动相比必然显得单薄，但这种主观性并没有削弱其集体参照框架。工人们的表达方式是一种民间戏剧。它融合了哑剧、粗犷的音乐，以及在工作场所、街头和屋顶上即兴上演的戏剧性的“暴力剧场”。它甚至包含戏中戏，因为莱维耶（Léveillé）在商店里多次重演了整场闹剧。事实上，最初的屠杀本身就是对其他仪式的滑稽模仿，例如审判和滑稽戏。所以康塔特写的是滑稽剧中的滑稽剧，在阅读它时，应该考虑到文化形式在不同类型和不同时间之间的折射。

The only version of the cat massacre available to us was put into writing, long after the fact, by Nicolas Contat. He selected details, ordered events, and framed the story in such a way as to bring out what was meaningful for him. But he derived his notions of meaning from his culture just as naturally as he drew in air from the atmosphere around him. And he wrote down what he had helped to enact with his mates. The subjective character of the writing does not vitiate its collective frame of reference, even though the written account must be thin compared with the action it describes. The workers’ mode of expression was a kind of popular theater. It involved pantomime, rough music, and a dramatic “theater of violence” improvised in the work place, in the street, and on the rooftops. It included a play within a play, because Léveillé reenacted the whole farce several times as copies in the shop. In fact, the original massacre involved the burlesquing of other ceremonies, such as trials and charivaris. So Contat wrote about a burlesque of a burlesque, and in reading it one should make allowances for the refraction of cultural forms across genres and over time.

考虑到这些因素，工人们显然觉得这场屠杀很有趣，因为它让他们有机会反过来羞辱资产阶级。他们用轻佻的叫喊声激怒他，迫使他下令屠杀猫，然后又借此象征性地审判他，指控他管理不善。他们还把这当成一场猎巫行动，以此为借口杀死他妻子的使魔，并暗示她自己才是女巫。最后，他们把这变成了一场滑稽戏，既对她进行性侮辱，又嘲笑他是个戴绿帽的丈夫。资产阶级成了这场闹剧的绝佳笑柄。他不仅成了自己一手策划的闹剧的受害者，而且还不明白自己被耍得有多惨。工人们用最私密的方式对他的妻子进行了象征性的攻击，但他却浑然不觉。他真是个榆木脑袋，典型的戴绿帽的丈夫。印刷厂以博卡齐式的滑稽风格对他进行了嘲讽，却逍遥法外。

Those allowances made, it seems clear that the workers found the massacre funny because it gave them a way to turn the tables on the bourgeois. By goading him with cat calls, they provoked him to authorize the massacre of cats, then they used the massacre to put him symbolically on trial for unjust management of the shop. They also used it as a witch hunt, which provided an excuse to kill his wife’s familiar and to insinuate that she herself was the witch. Finally, they transformed it into a charivari, which served as a means to insult her sexually while mocking him as a cuckold. The bourgeois made an excellent butt of the joke. Not only did he become the victim of a procedure he himself had set in motion, he did not understand how badly he had been had. The men had subjected his wife to symbolic aggression of the most intimate kind, but he did not get it. He was too thick-headed, a classic cuckold. The printers ridiculed him in splendid Boccaccian style and got off scot-free.

这个笑话之所以如此成功，是因为工人们巧妙地运用了一系列仪式和象征手法。猫完美地契合了他们的目的。他们通过打断“灰猫”（la grise）的脊椎，既辱骂了主人的妻子是女巫和荡妇，又让主人沦为戴绿帽的傻瓜。这是一种转喻式的侮辱，通过行动而非言语传递，之所以如此触动人心，是因为猫在资产阶级的生活方式中占据着一个特殊的位置。对工人们来说，养宠物就像虐待动物对资产阶级一样格格不入。夹在两种截然不同的情感之间，猫承受着双重的痛苦。

The joke worked so well because the workers played so skillfully with a repertory of ceremonies and symbols. Cats suited their purposes perfectly. By smashing the spine of la grise they called the master’s wife a witch and a slut, while at the same time making the master into a cuckold and a fool. It was metonymic insult, delivered by actions, not words, and it struck home because cats occupied a soft spot in the bourgeois way of life. Keeping pets was as alien to the workers as torturing animals was to the bourgeois. Trapped between incompatible sensitivities, the cats had the worst of both worlds.

工人们还喜欢在仪式中玩文字游戏。他们把围捕猫咪的活动演绎成猎巫、节日、狂欢、模拟审判和荤段子。然后，他们又用哑剧的形式重演一遍。每当他们工作累了，就把印刷作坊变成剧院，制作他们自己的“副本”，而不是原作者的副本。作坊里的戏剧表演和仪式性的文字游戏与他们的传统工艺相契合。虽然印刷工制作书籍，但他们并不使用文字来传达意义。他们运用手势，借鉴本行业的文化，将信息镌刻在空中。

The workers also punned with ceremonies. They made a roundup of cats into a witch hunt, a festival, a charivari, a mock trial, and a dirty joke. Then they redid the whole thing in pantomime. Whenever they got tired of working, they transformed the shop into a theater and produced copies—their kind of copy, not the authors’. Shop theater and ritual punning suited the traditions of their craft. Although printers made books, they did not use written words to convey their meaning. They used gestures, drawing on the culture of their craft to inscribe statements in the air.

如今看来或许微不足道，但在十八世纪，这种玩笑却是一件冒险的事。风险本身就是玩笑的一部分，就像许多其他形式的幽默一样，它们戏谑暴力，挑逗压抑的情感。工人们将这种象征性的嬉闹推向了实体化的边缘，以至于杀猫的行为会演变成公开的反抗。他们玩弄歧义，使用一些符号来隐藏其全部含义，同时又让其显露出足够的意义，从而戏弄资产阶级，却又不给其解雇他们的借口。他们戏弄资产阶级，却又不给其抗议的机会。要做到这一点，需要高超的技巧。这表明，工人们能够像诗人运用文字一样，在他们的语言中巧妙地运用符号。

Insubstantial as it may seem today, this joking was a risky business in the eighteenth century. The risk was part of the joke, as in many forms of humor, which toy with violence and tease repressed passions. The workers pushed their symbolic horseplay to the brink of reification, the point at which the killing of cats would turn into an open rebellion. They played on ambiguities, using symbols that would hide their full meaning while letting enough of it show through to make a fool of the bourgeois without giving him a pretext to fire them. They tweaked his nose and prevented him from protesting against it. To pull off such a feat required great dexterity. It showed that workers could manipulate symbols in their idiom as effectively as poets did in print.

这种玩笑必须被限制在一定的范围内，这反映了旧制度下工人阶级斗争的局限性。印刷工人认同的是他们的手艺，而非他们的阶级。尽管他们在教堂组织活动，举行罢工，有时甚至争取提高工资，但他们仍然处于资产阶级的统治之下。老板雇佣和解雇工人就像订购纸张一样随意，一旦嗅到一丝不服从的气息，就会把他们赶到街上。因此，直到19世纪末无产阶级化运动兴起之前，他们的抗议活动通常都停留在象征层面。印刷工作就像一场嘉年华，有助于他们释放压力；但它也带来了欢笑，这是早期手工业文化中至关重要的组成部分，却在劳动史上逐渐消失。通过观察两个世纪前印刷厂里人们嬉闹玩笑的方式，我们或许能够重新找回缺失的元素——笑声，纯粹的笑声，那种拍着大腿、笑得肋骨都裂开的拉伯雷式的笑声，而不是我们熟悉的伏尔泰式的冷笑。

The boundaries within which this jesting had to be contained suggest the limits to working-class militancy under the Old Regime. The printers identified with their craft rather than their class. Although they organized in chapels, staged strikes, and sometimes forced up wages, they remained subordinate to the bourgeois. The master hired and fired men as casually as he ordered paper, and he turned them out into the road when he sniffed insubordination. So until the onset of proletarianization in the late nineteenth century, they generally kept their protests on a symbolic level. A copie, like a carnival, helped to let off steam; but it also produced laughter, a vital ingredient in early artisanal culture and one that has been lost in labor history. By seeing the way a joke worked in the horseplay of a printing shop two centuries ago, we may be able to recapture that missing element—laughter, sheer laughter, the thigh-slapping, rib-cracking Rabelaisian kind, rather than the Voltairian smirk with which we are familiar.

他累得筋疲力尽，急需休息，以至于那间小屋在他眼里都像宫殿一样。他终于可以放松一下了，摆脱一整天的折磨和痛苦。然而，不，几只被诅咒的猫整夜都在庆祝女巫的安息日，吵闹不堪，剥夺了他短暂的休息时间。第二天清晨，熟练工们早早地就来了，不停地敲着那该死的钟，要求他进门。于是，孩子们不得不起床，穿着睡衣瑟瑟发抖地穿过院子去开门。那些熟练工们永不停歇。无论你做什么，你总是让他们白白浪费时间，他们总是把你当成懒惰的废物。他们喊着“起床啦！快点火！快去给水槽打水！”没错，这些活儿本该由住在家里的初级学徒干，但他们要到六七点才到。于是，除了师傅和女主人之外，所有人都很快就开始干活了：学徒、工匠，所有人都得干，只有师傅和女主人还能睡个好觉。这让杰罗姆和莱维耶很嫉妒。他们决心不让自己成为唯一受苦的人；他们也想和师傅和女主人一起干活。可是，该如何扭转乾坤呢？

He is so tired and needs rest so desperately that the shack looks like a palace to him. At last the persecution and misery he has suffered throughout the day have come to an end, and he can relax. But no, some bedeviled cats celebrate a witches’ sabbath all night long, making so much noise that they rob him of the brief period of rest allotted to the apprentices before the journeymen arrive for work early the next morning and demand admission by constant ringing of an infernal bell. Then the boys have to get up and cross the courtyard, shivering under their nightshirts, in order to open the door. Those journeymen never let up. No matter what you do, you always make them lose their time and they always treat you as a lazy good-for-nothing. They call for Léveillé. Light the fire under the cauldron! Fetch water for the dunking-troughs! True, those jobs are supposed to be done by the beginner apprentices, who live at home, but they don’t arrive until six or seven. Thus everyone is soon at work—apprentices, journeymen, everyone but the master and the mistress: they alone enjoy the sweetness of sleep. That makes Jerome and Léveillé jealous. They resolve that they will not be the only ones to suffer; they want their master and mistress as associates. But how to turn the trick?

莱维耶拥有非凡的模仿天赋，能惟妙惟肖地模仿周围每个人的声音和细微的动作。他是个完美的演员；这才是他在印刷厂里真正学到的本事。他还能完美地模仿猫狗的叫声。他决定从一个屋顶爬到另一个屋顶，直到到达资产阶级夫妇卧室旁的排水沟。在那里，他可以用一阵猫叫声伏击他们。对他来说，这简直易如反掌：他是屋顶工的儿子，能像猫一样在屋顶上飞檐走壁。

Léveillé has an extraordinary talent for imitating the voices and the smallest gestures of everyone around him. He is a perfect actor; that’s the real profession that he has picked up in the printing shop. He also can produce perfect imitations of the cries of dogs and cats. He decides to climb from roof to roof until he reaches a gutter next to the bedroom of the bourgeois and the bourgeoise. From there he can ambush them with a volley of meows. It’s an easy job for him: he is the son of a roofer and can scramble across roofs like a cat.

我们的狙击手命中目标，整个街区都惊慌失措。消息迅速传开，说有人在施巫术，那些猫一定是某个人在施咒。这事儿得找个能解救它的人，他是这家的密友，也是太太的告解神父。从此，大家都彻夜难眠。

Our sniper succeeds so well that the whole neighborhood is alarmed. The word spreads that there is witchcraft afoot and that the cats must be the agents of someone casting a spell. It is a case for the cure, who is an intimate of the household and the confessor of Madame. No one can sleep any more.

莱维耶在接下来的两个晚上都举行了安息日仪式。如果你不认识他，你一定会以为他是个巫师。最终，主人和女主人再也忍无可忍了。“我们最好让孩子们把那些邪恶的动物赶走，”他们说道。夫人下达了命令，并叮嘱他们不要吓到她的宠物猫“灰姑娘”。

Léveillé stages a sabbath the next night and the night after that. If you didn’t know him, you would be convinced he was a witch. Finally, the master and the mistress cannot stand it any longer. “We’d better tell the boys to get rid of those malevolent animals,” they declare. Madame gives them the order, exhorting them to avoid frightening la grise. That is the name of her pet pussy.

这位女士酷爱猫。许多版画大师也一样。其中一位养了二十五只猫。他请人给它们画了肖像，还用烤鸡喂它们。

This lady is impassioned for cats. Many master printers are also. One of them has twenty-five. He has had their portraits painted and feeds them on roast fowl.

猎猫行动很快展开。学徒们决心彻底清除猫，工匠们也加入了他们的行列。师傅们喜爱猫，所以他们理所当然地憎恨猫。有人拿着压榨机的横杆，有人拿着烘干室的木棍，还有人拿着扫帚柄。他们在阁楼和储藏室的窗户上挂上麻袋，用来捕捉那些试图跳到外面逃跑的猫。驱猫人选确定，一切都安排妥当。莱维耶和他的同伴杰罗姆主持这场“盛宴”，两人都拿着从店里拿来的铁棍。他们首先的目标是“灰猫”，也就是夫人的猫。莱维耶迅速击中它的肾脏，把它打晕，杰罗姆补刀。然后莱维耶把尸体塞进排水沟，因为他们不想被抓：这是一起非同小可的谋杀案，必须掩盖。这些人在屋顶上制造恐慌。猫咪们惊慌失措，纷纷钻进麻袋里。有些猫当场毙命，另一些则被判处绞刑，供整个印刷厂的人取乐。

The hunt is soon organized. The apprentices resolve to make a clean sweep of it, and they are joined by the journeymen. The masters love cats, so consequently they must hate them. This man arms himself with the bar of a press, that one with a stick from the drying-room, others with broom handles. They hang sacks at the windows of the attic and the storerooms to catch the cats who attempt to escape by leaping outdoors. The beaters are named, everything is organized. Léveillé and his comrade Jerome preside over the fete, each of them armed with an iron bar from the shop. The first thing they go for is la grise, Madame’s pussy. Léveillé stuns it with a quick blow on the kidneys, and Jerome finishes it off. Then Léveillé stuffs the body in a gutter, for they don’t want to get caught: it is a matter of consequence, a murder, which must be kept hidden. The men produce terror on the rooftops. Seized by panic, the cats throw themselves into the sacks. Some are killed on the spot. Others are condemned to be hanged for the amusement of the entire printing shop.

印刷工人懂得如何欢笑；这是他们唯一的职业。

Printers know how to laugh; it is their sole occupation.

行刑即将开始。他们指定了刽子手、一队卫兵，甚至还有一名忏悔者。然后，他们宣判。

The execution is about to begin. They name a hangman, a troop of guards, even a confessor. Then they pronounce the sentence.

就在这时，女主人回来了。当她看到血腥的处决场面时，她惊愕不已！她发出了一声尖叫；随后她的声音戛然而止，因为她以为自己看到了灰姑娘，她确信这样的命运是为她心爱的猫咪准备的。工人们向她保证，没有人会犯下这种罪行：他们对这座宅邸充满了敬意。

In the midst of it all, the mistress arrives. What is her surprise, when she sees the bloody execution! She lets out a scream; then her voice is cut, because she thinks she sees la grise, and she is certain that such a fate has been reserved for her favorite puss. The workers assure her that no one would be capable of such a crime: they have too much respect for the house.

资产阶级来了。“啊！这些无赖，”他说，“他们不干活，反而去杀猫。”夫人对先生说：“这些恶人杀不了主人，就杀了我的猫。她不见了。我到处喊‘灰猫’，他们一定是把她吊死了。”在她看来，就算所有工人的血都流干，也弥补不了这侮辱。可怜的灰猫，一只独一无二的猫！

The bourgeois arrives. “Ah! The scoundrels,” he says. “Instead of working, they are killing cats.” Madame to Monsieur: “These wicked men can’t kill the masters, so they have killed my pussy. She can’t be found. I have called la grise everywhere. They must have hanged her.” It seems to her that all the workers’ blood would not be sufficient to redeem the insult. The poor grise, a pussy without a peer!

先生和夫人退下了，工人们自由了下来。印刷工人们乐于见到这混乱的局面，他们欣喜若狂。

Monsieur and Madame retire, leaving the workers in liberty. The printers delight in the disorder; they are beside themselves with joy.

这真是个绝妙的笑料，一个绝佳的戏仿素材！他们会拿它取乐很久。莱维耶将担任主角，至少要上演二十遍。他会模仿主人、女主人，以及整栋房子里的人，对他们进行无情的嘲讽。他的讽刺可谓毫不留情。在印刷商中，那些擅长这种娱乐的人被称为“jobeurs”（意为“工作坊”），他们提供“joberie”（意为“工作坊”）。

What a splendid subject for their laughter, for a belle copie! They will amuse themselves with it for a long time. Léveillé will take the leading role and will stage the play at least twenty times. He will mime the master, the mistress, the whole house, heaping ridicule on them all. He will spare nothing in his satire. Among printers, those who excel in this entertainment are called jobeurs: they provide joberie.

莱维耶赢得了许多掌声。

Léveillé receives many rounds of applause.

值得注意的是，所有工人都联合起来对抗老板。只要说老板的坏话，就能赢得全体印刷工人的尊敬。莱维莱就是其中之一。鉴于他的功绩，我们将赦免他之前一些针对工人的讽刺作品。

It should be noted that all the workers are in league against the masters. It is enough to speak badly of them [the masters] to be esteemed by the whole assembly of typographers. LéveiIlé is one of those. In recognition of his merit, he will be pardoned for some previous satires against the workers.

他为何要着手如此庞大而艰巨的工程，我们不得而知。他或许是想出版一本旅游指南，因为他在1768年出版的《蒙彼利埃市现状及描述》（以下简称 《描述》）的引言中解释说，他想以一种对游客有帮助的方式来描述蒙彼利埃，并“展现这座城市的真实面貌——尽管它规模不大，却在王国中占据着举足轻重的地位。” ^²他听起来对自己的城市感到自豪，并急于向我们介绍它，仿佛我们是茫然地站在陌生街角的外国人，而他正在为我们指路。这或许并非什么罕见的情景，但却引出了一个值得思考的问题：描述一个世界究竟意味着什么？如果我们有这种冲动和精力，我们又该如何将我们周围的环境用文字表达出来呢？我们是从鸟瞰视角开始，然后逐渐缩小范围，最终聚焦于一个关键的十字路口——就像本地版的“主街与藤街”？或者，我们会像一个陌生人一样进入这座城市，从乡村到郊区，最终抵达城市中心那片气势恢宏的建筑群——市政厅、教堂或百货公司？或许我们可以从社会学的角度来描述这座城市，从市政权力精英入手，或者从基层工人开始向上追溯。我们甚至可以融入一些精神层面的元素，比如以七月四日的演讲或布道作为开篇。可能性似乎无穷无尽，或者至少多到令人不知所措。毕竟，一个人该如何将“城市的真正理念”诉诸笔端呢？尤其是在他如此关心这座城市，而纸张又如此取之不尽用之不竭的情况下？

Exactly why he undertook such a vast and exhausting project cannot be determined. He may have intended to publish a kind of guidebook, for he explained in an introduction to his Etat et description de la ville de Montpellier fait en 1768 (referred to henceforth as Description) that he wanted to describe Montpellier in a way that would be helpful to visitors and that would “give the true idea of a city which, though not particularly large in size, nonetheless occupies a distinguished place in the kingdom.”² He sounds proud of his city and eager to tell us about it, as if we were foreigners looking rather bewildered on an unfamiliar street corner and he were offering directions. Not an unusual situation, perhaps, but one that raises a question worth considering: What is it to describe a world? How would we reduce our own surroundings to writing, if we felt the urge and had the energy? Would we begin with a bird’s-eye view and then narrow the focus as we descended to a key intersection, the local version of Main and Vine? Or would we enter the city like a stranger, passing from countryside to suburbs to some imposing cluster of buildings at the heart of the urban space—a town hall or church or department store? Perhaps we would organize our description sociologically, beginning with the municipal power elite or working upward from the workers. We could even strike a spiritual note, starting with a Fourth of July oration or a sermon. The possibilities seem infinite, or at least extensive enough to be paralyzing. For how can one put “the true idea of a city” on paper, especially if one cares about the city and the supply of paper is endless?

举一个著名的例子，可以帮助我们更好地了解十八世纪的蒙彼利埃：

Consider a famous example, which will provide some perspective to the picture of eighteenth-century Montpellier:

对我们而言，阅读作者的描述与他写作时一样困难。字里行间都流露出一种异质的意识，试图构建一个早已不复存在的世界。为了理解这种意识，我们需要将注意力更多地放在描述方式而非被描述的对象上。作者是否运用了标准的城市地貌分类体系？他如何划定界限来区分不同的现象？当他提笔写作时，又选择了哪些类别来梳理各种感受？我们的任务并非探寻1768年的蒙彼利埃究竟是什么样子，而是理解我们的观察者是如何观察它的。

It is as problematic for us to read our author’s description as it was for him to write it. Every phrase expresses a foreign consciousness trying to order a world that no longer exists. To penetrate that consciousness, we need to concentrate more on the modes of description than on the objects described. Did our author utilize standard schemes for ordering urban topography? Where did he draw lines in order to separate this phenomenon from that? And what categories did he choose for sorting out sensations when he put his pen to paper? Our task is not to discover what Montpellier really looked like in 1768 but to understand how our observer observed it.

但首先要谈谈“资产阶级”这个带有偏见的词汇。它具有侮辱性、令人恼火、不够精确，却又无法回避。历史学家们就此争论了数代，至今仍在争论。在法国，它通常带有马克思主义的含义。资产阶级是生产方式的拥有者，是具有自身生活方式和意识形态的特定类型的经济人。他是十八世纪的关键人物，那个时代经济飞速扩张，甚至可以说是工业化：按照法国人对“盎格鲁-撒克逊”经济学的片面理解，那是“起飞”的时代。面对经济实力与政治软弱之间的矛盾——尤其是在1789年之前贵族势力复兴时期，这种矛盾更加突出——资产阶级觉醒了阶级意识，并发动了革命，领导农民和工匠组成的人民阵线，最终走向了法国大革命。意识形态对于这股强大力量的融合至关重要，因为资产阶级成功地将自身的自由（尤其是自由贸易）和平等（尤其是废除贵族特权）理念灌输给了普通民众。到1789年，启蒙运动已经完成了它的使命：正如最负盛名的法国历史学家撰写的最具影响力的法国教科书向一代读者所保证的那样，“十八世纪的思想是资产阶级的。” ^⁴

But first a word about the tendentious term “bourgeois.” It is abusive, aggravating, inexact, and unavoidable. Historians have argued over it for generations, and are arguing still. In France, it generally has Marxist connotations. The bourgeois is the owner of the modes of production, a certain variety of Economic Man with his own way of life and his own ideology. He was the key figure of the eighteenth century, a time of enormous expansion, if not downright industrialization: “le take-off,” according to the fractured-French view of “Anglo-Saxon” economics. Faced with the contradiction between his economic power and his political impotence—aggravated during the period of aristocratic resurgence on the eve of 1789—the bourgeois acquired class consciousness and revolted, leading a popular front of peasants and artisans into the French Revolution. Ideology was essential for the fusion of this striking force, because the bourgeoisie managed to saturate the common people with its own ideas of liberty (especially free trade) and equality (especially the destruction of aristocratic privilege). By 1789, the Enlightenment had done its work: as the most influential French textbooks by the most prestigious French historians assured a generation of readers, “The eighteenth century thought bourgeois.”⁴

这一永恒主题的版本——中产阶级的崛起——建立在这样一种历史观之上：历史是一个在经济、社会和文化三个层面运作的过程。层面越深，力量就越强大。因此，经济的变化会引起社会结构的变化，并最终影响价值观和观念。诚然，一些历史学家提出了截然不同的观点。罗兰·穆斯尼埃及其学生描绘了一幅旧制度的理想化图景，将其视为一个基于法律规范和社会地位的秩序社会。在马克思主义者中，葛兰西主义倾向认为，意识形态力量在形成霸权性的社会政治“集团”的^过程中具有一定的自主性。尽管如此，从20世纪50年代到70年代，法国历史写作的主流趋势是试图构建一种基于三层因果关系模型的“总体史”。

This version of the sempiternal theme, the rise of the middle classes, rests on a view of history as a process that operates on three levels, the economic, social, and cultural. The deeper the level, the more powerful the force. Thus changes in the economy produce changes in the social structure and ultimately in values and ideas. To be sure, some historians developed very different views. Roland Mousnier and his students elaborated an idealistic picture of the Old Regime as a society of orders, based on juridical norms and social status. Among the Marxists, a Gramscian tendency attributed some autonomy to ideological forces in the formation of hegemonic sociopolitical “blocks.” Nonetheless, the dominant trend in French historical writing from the 1950s through the 1970s was an attempt to create a “total” history based on a three-tiered model of causality.⁵

这种观点将资产阶级置于舞台中心。作为生产资料的掌握者、社会结构中不断上升的阶层以及现代意识形态的捍卫者，他们注定要横扫一切——而他们在法国大革命中也的确做到了。然而，没有人真正了解他们。在历史书中，他们只是一个没有面孔的类别。因此，在1955年，三重层次总体史的权威倡导者欧内斯特·拉布鲁斯发起了一场运动，旨在追溯资产阶级在档案中的藏身之处。根据社会职业网格编制的大规模统计调查，旨在将资产阶级置于西方各地的社会结构之中，研究从18世纪的巴黎开始。然而，巴黎的情况却难以捉摸。弗朗索瓦·福雷和阿德琳·杜玛尔对1749年的2597份婚姻契约的调查揭示了一个由工匠、店主、专业人士、皇家官员和贵族组成的城市社会，但没有制造商，商人也寥寥无几。丹尼尔·罗什和米歇尔·沃维尔对巴黎和沙特尔的比较研究得出了类似的结论。两座城市的确都有资产阶级，但他们是“旧制度下的资产阶级”——主要是靠年金和地租为生的食利者，他们不工作，这与马克思主义史学中工业资产阶级的概念截然相反。诚然，在亚眠和里昂等纺织中心也能找到制造商，但他们通常经营的是存在了几个世纪的外包企业，与当时开始改变英国城市面貌的机械化工厂生产毫无相似之处。法国的企业家大多来自贵族阶层。贵族们投资于各种工商业，而不仅仅是传统的采矿和冶金行业，而商人一旦积累了足够的资本，可以像绅士一样依靠土地和地租生活，往往就会退出商界。 ⁶

This view placed the bourgeois squarely at stage center. As possessor of the modes of production, rising element in the social structure, and champion of a modern ideology, he was destined to sweep everything before him—and did so in the French Revolution. But no one knew him very well. He appeared in the history books as a category without a face. So in 1955, Ernest Labrousse, the supreme spokesman of triple-layered, total history launched a campaign to track the bourgeois to his hiding places in the archives. Vast statistical surveys compiled according to a socio-occupational grid were to situate the bourgeoisie within social structures everywhere in the West, beginning with eighteenth-century Paris. Paris, however, proved intractable. Soundings in 2,597 marriage contracts from the year 1749 by Francois Furet and Adeline Daumard uncovered an urban society composed of artisans, shopkeepers, professionals, royal officials, and nobles, but no manufacturers and only a handful of merchants. A comparative study of Paris and Chartres by Daniel Roche and Michel Vovelle produced similar results. Each city had bourgeois all right, but they were “bourgeois d’Ancien Régime”—primarily rentiers, who lived from annuities and land rents and did not work, the very opposite of the industrial bourgeoisie of Marxist historiography. True, manufacturers could be found in textile centers like Amiens and Lyon, but they usually directed putting-out enterprises of a kind that had existed for centuries and bore no resemblance to the mechanized, factory production that was beginning to transform the urban landscape in England. Insofar as France had entrepreneurs, they tended to come from the nobility. Noblemen invested in all sorts of industry and commerce, not merely in the traditional sectors of mining and metallurgy, while merchants frequently got out of trade as soon as they had accumulated enough capital to live like gentlemen, on land and rentes.⁶

随着研究专著层出不穷，涵盖了各个城市和省份，旧制度下的法国显得愈发陈旧过时。一些优秀的研究，例如莫里斯·加尔关于里昂和让-克洛德·佩罗关于卡昂的著作，确实发现了一些真正的制造商和商人；但与早期现代法国各大城市中数量庞大的工匠和店主相比，这些无可否认的资本主义资产阶级显得微不足道。除了里尔以及其他一些城市的少数几个区域外，社会历史学家在任何地方都找不到马克思主义者所设想的那种充满活力、具有自觉意识的工业化阶级。米歇尔·莫里诺甚至认为，整个十八世纪法国经济都处于停滞状态，而拉布鲁斯在20世纪三四十年代绘制的图表所展现的粮食价格上涨所体现的经济扩张景象实际上是一种错觉——是马尔萨斯主义压力而非生产力提高的产物。经济或许没有那么疲弱，但显然没有经历工业革命，甚至农业革命也没有。从英吉利海峡的法国一侧来看，“起飞”开始显得格外“盎格鲁-撒克逊式” ^。7

As the monographs continued to pour in, covering city after city and province after province, Old Regime France came to look more and more archaic. The best studies, such as those of Maurice Garden on Lyon and Jean-Claude Perrot on Caen, turned up a few genuine manufacturers and merchants; but this undeniably capitalist bourgeoisie seemed trivial in comparison with the vast population of artisans and shopkeepers that proliferated in all the cities of early modern France. Nowhere, except perhaps in Lille and one or two sectors of other cities, did the social historians find the dynamic, self-conscious, industrializing class imagined by the Marxists. Michel Morineau went so far as to argue that the economy remained stagnant throughout the eighteenth century and that the standard picture of economic expansion epitomized by the rising waves of grain prices on the graphs produced by Labrousse in the 1930s and 1940s was actually an illusion—the product of Malthusian pressure rather than of an increase in productivity. The economy may not have been quite that feeble, but it clearly did not go through an industrial or even an agricultural revolution. Seen from the French side of the Channel, “le take-off” began to look particularly “Anglo-Saxon.”⁷

这种趋势席卷了旧制度三层模式底层的大部分现代性，并侵蚀了位于第二层的进步力量的大部分人口。那么，“资产阶级思想”的世纪概念又该何去何从呢？对主要思想中心——地方学院——进行的大规模社会学分析表明，思想家们属于由贵族、神职人员、国家官员、医生和律师组成的传统精英阶层。启蒙运动时期书籍的读者群与此并无太大差异，而戏剧观众——即使是那些为新兴的资产阶级戏剧而潸然泪下的观众——似乎也更具贵族气息。正如我们将在下一章中看到的，作家们来自社会的各个阶层，唯独工业阶层除外。当然，启蒙运动时期的文学仍然可以被解读为“资产阶级”的，因为人们总是可以将这个词与一套价值观联系起来，然后在文字中找到这些价值观的表达。但这种方法往往会陷入冗余的循环——资产阶级文学是表达资产阶级观点的文学——却与社会历史脱节。因此，在各个研究层面，学者们都响应了“寻找资产阶级”的号召，但却始终未能找到他^。8

This tendency swept away most of the modernity in the bottom level of the three-tiered model of the Old Regime and eroded most of the population in the progressive forces located at level two. Where did it leave the notion of a century that “thought bourgeois” ? A massive sociological analysis of the main centers of thought, the provincial academies, showed that the thinkers belonged to a traditional elite of nobles, priests, state officials, doctors, and lawyers. The audience for the books of the Enlightenment looked very much the same, while the theater audiences—even those who wept at the new genre of drames bourgeois—appeared to be even more aristocratic. And as we shall see in the next chapter, the writers themselves came from every segment of society, except the industrial. Of course Enlightenment literature could still be interpreted as “bourgeois” because one can always attach that term to a set of values and then find those values expressed in print. But that procedure has a way of spinning around in redundancies—bourgeois literature is literature that expresses the outlook of the bourgeoisie—without making contact with social history. Thus at all levels of research, scholars have responded to the call—cherchez le bourgeois—but they have failed to find him.⁸

鉴于此，将我们这位蒙彼利埃人视为如此罕见物种的代表或许显得有些夸张——尤其当我们无法准确界定他的身份时更是如此。但我们可以通过他在文本中所采用的语气大致定位他。他一方面与贵族划清界限，另一方面又与平民百姓保持距离；他以一种惊人的、直言不讳的姿态在字里行间宣扬自己的立场，这表明他处于城市社会的中层，与医生、律师、行政人员和食利者为伍，这些人构成了大多数外省城市的知识分子阶层。这些人属于“旧制度下的资产阶级”。他们是十八世纪意义上的资产阶级，当时的词典将其简单地定义为“城市公民”，但也记录了这个形容词的特殊用法，例如“资产阶级住宅”、“资产阶级汤”、“资产阶级葡萄酒”，而副词的例子则描绘了一种特定的生活方式：“他过着资产阶级的生活，谈吐举止都体现着资产阶级的品味。中午，他与家人一起享用资产阶级式的晚餐，但饭菜丰盛，胃口也很好。 ^”

In view of that experience, it may seem extravagant to present our Montpelliérain as a specimen of such a rare species—and all the more so as we cannot identify him precisely. But he can be located in a general way by the voice he assumes in his text. He disassociates himself from the nobility on the one hand and the common people on the other; and his sympathies, proclaimed on every page with a marvelously opinionated openness, place him somewhere in the middle range of urban society, among the doctors, lawyers, administrators, and rentiers, who formed the intelligentsia in most provincial cities. These men belonged to the “bourgeoisie d’Ancien Régime.” They were bourgeois in the eighteenth-century sense of the term, which contemporary dictionaries defined simply as “citizen of a city,” though the dictionaries also noted special usages of the adjective, such as “a bourgeois house,” “a bourgeois soup,” “a bourgeois wine,” and their examples of the adverb evoked a certain way of life: “He lives, he speaks, he reasons bourgeoisement. At noon, he dines bourgeoisement, with his family, but well and with good appetite.”⁹

从这种谦逊的、当代的资产阶级观念出发，我们应该能够以一种同情的精神进入对资产阶级的描述；然后，从内部着手，我们或许能够在作者用他的文本构建的世界中漫游。

Beginning with that modest, contemporary notion of the bourgeois, we should be able to enter into the Description in a sympathetic spirit; and then, working from the inside, we may be able to roam around in the world that our author constructed with his text.

然而，在深入研究之前，我们应该简要地了解一下历史学家们重建的蒙彼利埃，哪怕只是为了找到一些可以作为参照的参照点^。10

Before taking the plunge, however, we should look briefly at the Montpellier that has been reconstructed by historians, if only to find some points of comparison with which to orient ourselves. ¹⁰

十八世纪的蒙彼利埃本质上是一个行政中心和市场，是朗格多克省仅次于图卢兹和尼姆的第三大城市。其人口增长迅速，从1710年的约两万人增长到1789年的约三万一千人——这并非像许多其他城市那样仅仅是由于农村移民，而是因为死亡率下降，最终导致财富增长。经济史学家如今将旧制度最后阶段——“扩张的世纪”——的时间范围缩小到1740年至1770年的三十年；但在蒙彼利埃，即使经济并未发生根本性的变革，这三十年也足以让几乎所有人的生活更加便利。丰收的季节，物价的稳定，利润从城市腹地的农业区溢出到市场，然后扩散到各个作坊和精品店。

Eighteenth-century Montpellier was essentially an administrative center and a marketplace, the third largest city after Toulouse and Nimes in the vast province of Languedoc. Its population grew rapidly, from about twenty thousand in 1710 to about thirty-one thousand in 1789—not merely because of immigration from the countryside, as in many other cities, but because of a decline in mortality and, ultimately, an increase of wealth. Economic historians have now whittled down the “century of expansion,” as the last phase of the Old Regime used to be known, to three decades, 1740 to 1770; but in Montpellier those years were enough to make life easier for almost everyone, even if they did not transform the economy. Harvests were good, prices healthy, and profits spilled over from the city’s agricultural hinterland into its markets, then spread throughout its workshops and boutiques.

然而，蒙彼利埃并非曼彻斯特。自中世纪晚期以来，它一直生产着同样的商品，规模也始终如一。例如，铜绿的生产就占据了大约八百户人家，每年能带来高达80万里弗尔的收入。铜绿是在普通人家的地窖里制作的，他们将铜板堆叠在装满蒸馏酒的陶罐中。家里的妇女每周一次，将铜板上的“铜绿”（醋酸铜）刮下来。代理人挨家挨户地收集铜绿；像弗朗索瓦·杜兰父子这样的大型商行则将铜绿销往欧洲各地。蒙彼利埃人还生产其他一些地方特产：扑克牌、香水和手套。多达两千人编织并加工一种名为“flassadas”的羊毛毯，他们按照外包制在自己的房间里工作。羊毛制品总体上已经衰落，但蒙彼利埃却成为了该省其他地区所产布匹的转运站（仓库）。到了18世纪60年代，棉纺织业开始发展，其中一些工厂（fabriques）在城郊兴起，雇佣了数百名工人。许多工厂生产印花棉布和手帕，由于鼻烟的流行，这些产品需求量很大。然而，鼻烟和铜绿并非能够引发工业革命的原料，这些工厂只不过是众多作坊中的一个小小的延伸，而这些作坊里的工匠和师傅——相当于当地的杰罗姆和他的“资产阶级”——仍然像两百年前那样从事着他们的工作。尽管世纪中叶经济有所扩张，但经济仍然不发达——工匠们在门口敲打锅碗瓢盆，裁缝们盘腿坐在商店橱窗里，商人在点钞房里称量硬币。

Montpellier was no Manchester, however. It produced the same articles that it had made since the late Middle Ages, working on the same small scale. The manufacture of verdigris, for example, occupied about eight hundred families and brought in as much as 800,000 livres a year. It was made in the cellars of ordinary homes, where copper plates were stacked in clay pots filled with distilled wine. The women of the household scraped the “verdet” (copper acetate) off the plates once a week. Agents collected it, going from house to house; and large merchant firms like François Durand et fils marketed it everywhere in Europe. Montpelliérains also produced other local specialties: playing cards, perfumes, and gloves. Up to two thousand of them wove and finished woolen blankets known as flassadas, working in their rooms according to the putting-out system. Woolens in general had gone into decline, but Montpellier served as an entrepôt (warehouse) for the cloth produced in the rest of the province. And in the 1760s, the cotton industry began to develop, some of it in factories (fabriques), which grew up on the outskirts of the city and employed hundreds of workers. Many of them made calicoes and handkerchiefs, which were greatly in demand thanks to the growing fashion for taking snuff. But snuff and verdigris were not the stuff of which an industrial revolution could be made, and the factories were but a small outgrowth on a huge body of workshops, where journeymen and masters—the local equivalents of Jerome and his “bourgeois”—went about their business pretty much as they had done two hundred years earlier. Despite the expansion of the mid-century years, the economy remained underdeveloped—an economy of tinkers banging on pots in doorways, of tailors sitting cross-legged in shop windows, and of merchants weighing coin in counting houses.

随着财富的积累，蒙彼利埃逐渐形成了一种商业寡头政治。与其他法国城市一样，商人们倾向于将资本从贸易转移到土地和官职上。当他们购得司法部门和皇家官僚机构的高层职位时，便获得了贵族头衔。最富有的家族——拉雅尔家族、杜兰家族、佩里埃家族和巴齐耶家族——主导了蒙彼利埃的社会和文化生活，尤其因为这座城市几乎没有古老的封建贵族。由于蒙彼利埃是该省最重要的行政中心，是省督府、省属庄园、省长办公室以及几个皇家法院（尽管不包括省高等法院）的所在地，因此，大量国家官员也加入了他们的行列。但在一个1768年只有大约两万五千居民的城市里，上流社会不可能非常庞大。精英阶层几乎人人都彼此相识。他们在音乐学院的音乐会上相遇，在剧院的戏剧演出中相识，在皇家科学院的讲座上交流，并在十几个共济会会所的仪式上相聚。他们每天都在佩鲁长廊上擦肩而过，每周都一起用餐，尤其是在星期天，他们会在圣皮埃尔大教堂做完弥撒后，围坐在一起享用丰盛的晚餐。他们中的许多人还聚集在里戈和庞斯书店以及亚伯拉罕·丰塔内尔的文学书房（读书俱乐部）里，在那里他们阅读相同的书籍，其中包括伏尔泰、狄德罗和卢梭的大量作品。

The coin accumulated to such an extent that Montpellier developed something of a commercial oligarchy. As in other French cities, the merchants tended to shift their capital from trade to land and offices. And when they bought positions in the upper ranks of the judiciary and the royal bureaucracy, they became ennobled. The wealthiest families—the Lajard, Durand, Périé, and Bazille—dominated the social and cultural life of Montpellier, all the more so as the town had virtually no ancient feudal nobility. Their ranks were swollen by a great many state officials because Montpellier was the most important administrative center of the province, the site of the intendancy, the provincial estates, the office of the governor, and of several royal courts, though not the provincial parlement (sovereign law court). But it was impossible for the upper crust to be very thick in a city that had only twenty-five thousand inhabitants, approximately, in 1768. Almost everyone in the elite knew everyone else. They met at concerts in the Académie de musique, at plays in the Salle de Spectacles, at lectures in the Academie Royale des Sciences, and at ceremonies in a dozen masonic lodges. They crossed one another’s path every day in the Promenade du Peyrou, and dined together every week, especially on Sundays, when they sat down to elaborate meals after attending mass in the Cathédrale de Saint Pierre. Many of them also gathered in the bookstore of Rigaud et Pons and in the cabinet littéraire (reading club) of Abraham Fontanel, where they read the same books, including a large number of works by Voltaire, Diderot, and Rousseau.

正是这座相当繁荣进步的二流城市——蒙彼利埃——成为了我们作者在1768年着手描述的对象。但我们不应将他的描述与我们自己的描述进行对比，试图将历史学家笔下的蒙彼利埃与对事实的诠释（即作者笔下的蒙彼利埃）进行比较。因为我们永远无法将诠释与事实完全割裂开来。我们也无法超越文本，直抵其外的某种不容置疑的现实。事实上，前三段正是以我一直在批判的视角来描述这座城市。它们从人口统计和经济入手，进而探讨社会结构和文化。这种描述方式对于1768年的蒙彼利埃人来说是不可想象的。他从主教和神职人员开始，然后依次介绍了市政当局，最后概述了社会各阶层及其习俗。文本的每一部分都紧随其后，如同列队行进一般。事实上，《描述》的前半部分读起来就像是在描述一场游行——这也不难理解，因为在近代早期的欧洲，游行是各地都非常重要的活动。它们展现了人们认为构成社会秩序的尊严、品质、体魄和地位。因此，当作者描述他的城市时，他组织思路的方式与他的同胞们安排游行的方式如出一辙。他只是在个别地方稍作改动，便将他们在街头所展现的一切诉诸笔端，因为游行是城市社会的一种传统表达方式。

It was this town—a fairly prosperous and progressive city of the second rank—that our author sat down to describe in 1768. But his description should not be set against our own in an attempt to compare the facts on the one hand (the historian’s Montpellier) with the interpretation of the facts on the other (the Montpellier of the Description). For we can never disentangle interpretation and facts. Nor can we fight our way past the text to some hard and fast reality beyond it. Indeed, the previous three paragraphs describe the city in the very categories that I have been criticizing. They begin with demography and economics and move on to social structure and culture. That mode of description would have been unthinkable to the Montpelliérain of 1768. He began with the bishop and the clergy, then ran through the civil authorities, and ended with a survey of the different “estates” of society and their customs. Each segment of the text follows its predecessor as if it were on parade. In fact, the first half of the Description reads like an account of a procession—and understandably so, for processions were important events everywhere in early modern Europe. They displayed the dignités, qualités, corps, and états of which the social order was thought to be composed. Thus when he described his city, our author organized his thoughts in the same way as his countrymen arranged their processions. With minor deviations here and there, he translated onto paper what they acted out in the streets because the procession served as a traditional idiom for urban society.

那么，蒙彼利埃的游行队伍究竟是什么样的呢？根据《城市描述》前半部分的记载，典型的游行队伍大致相当于今天人们所说的城市上层建筑。游行以仪仗队的盛大亮相拉开序幕，仪仗队负责在所有重要场合护送市政官员：两名身着红色长袍、袖口饰有银边的指挥官；六名身穿蓝红相间长袍、手持银质权杖和刻有城市徽章牌匾的权杖侍卫；八名手持长矛的戟兵；以及一名身着红色银边服饰的号手，他以嘹亮的号声为身后的贵宾开路。

What, then, was Montpellier on parade? As reconstructed from the first half of the Description, a typical procession générale conformed closely to what today would be called the city’s superstructure. It opened with a burst of color and sound from the ceremonial guard who escorted the municipal officials on all important occasions: two commanders dressed entirely in red with silver lacing on their sleeves; six mace-bearers in robes, half-blue, half-red, carrying silver maces and plaques with the town’s arms; eight halberdiers bearing spears; and a trumpeteer in a red costume with silver lace, who cleared the way for the dignitaries behind him with a blast of music.

首先是第一等级（神职人员），随后是一系列宗教团体：白衣忏悔者，他们手持蜡烛，身着白色长袍，头戴兜帽；接着是身着不同深浅麻布的低级修会——真十字会、诸圣会和圣保罗会。在这些团体列队行进之后，大约有百余人，出现了一队孤儿，他们身穿贫民院（Hôpital Général）粗糙的蓝灰色制服。男孩和女孩分开行进，后面跟着六位院长、十二位院长和六位贫民院理事——这既体现了城市对穷人的关怀，也是对上帝恩典的祈求，因为穷人被认为与上帝格外亲近，更能获得上帝的怜悯。因此，他们经常在葬礼上列队，手持蜡烛和布匹等礼仪性礼物。

The First Estate (clergy) came first, beginning with a succession of religious confraternities: the Pénitents Blancs, who carried candles and marched in long, white gowns, their heads hidden in hoods; then the lesser orders in different shades of sackcloth—La Vraie-Croix, Tous les Saints, and Saint Paul. After these filed by, perhaps a hundred strong, a line of orphans appeared, dressed in the coarse blue and grey uniforms of the Hôpital Général (poorhouse). The boys and girls marched separately, followed by six intendants, twelve rectors, and six syndics of the Hôpital—a statement of the city’s commitment to care for its poor and at the same time an appeal for Divine favor because the poor were considered especially close to God and effective in obtaining His mercy. So they often marched in funerals, bearing candles and ceremonial gifts of cloth.

接下来是正规神职人员，每个修会都身着传统服饰，并按照其在蒙彼利埃的建会历史长短依次就座：首先是八位多明我会修士，然后是十二位科德利埃修士、三位奥斯定会修士、三位大加尔默罗会修士、十二位卡尔梅·德绍塞修士、三位慈悲之父会修士、三十位嘉布遣会修士、二十位雷科莱修士，以及一位奥拉托利安修士。随后是世俗神职人员：三位助理牧师和十一位副牧师，他们代表着蒙彼利埃三个堂区的牧灵工作。

Next came the regular clergy, each order dressed in its traditional costume and each placed according to the antiquity of its foundation in Montpellier: first eight Dominicans, then twelve Cordeliers, three Augustins, three Grands Carmes, twelve Carmes Déchaussés, three Pères de la Merci, thirty Capucins, twenty Récollets, and one Oratorien. The secular clergy followed: three curates and eleven vicars, representing the “cure” (pastoral care) of souls in the three parishes of the city.

此时，一座精雕细琢的金银十字架高高耸立，标志着主教的到来。他紧随圣体之后，两侧簇拥着大教堂的教士；他身着华丽的粉红色长袍，彰显其尊贵身份，因为他同时也是莫吉奥和蒙费朗伯爵、拉马尔克罗斯侯爵、索夫男爵和拉韦吕讷领主，拥有年收入达六万里弗尔的领地。诚然，省内其他教区历史更为悠久；纳博讷、图卢兹和阿尔比都设有大主教。但当主教们齐聚蒙彼利埃参加省议会的游行时，只有蒙彼利埃主教身着粉红色长袍。其他二十三位主教都身着黑色长袍，只有纳博讷大主教例外，他尊贵的身份也赋予了他穿粉红色长袍的权利。在市政游行中，蒙彼利埃主教的粉色长袍与身着黑色长袍、头戴灰色毛皮兜帽的教士们形成鲜明对比。教士们按等级列队：四名尊贵者（Dignitaires）、四名尊贵者（Persennats）和十五名普通教士（Simples Chanoines）。随后是游行中最庄严的环节——圣体光的展示。圣体被放置在装饰华丽的游行祭坛上，祭坛上方的华盖由城里的六位执政官抬着。

At this point a magnificent cross, elaborately wrought in gold and silver, signaled the arrival of the bishop. He marched immediately before the Host, surrounded by the canons of the cathedral; and his profuse pink robes expressed his special eminence, for he was also comte de Mauguio and Montferrand, marquis de la Marquerose, baron de Sauve, and seigneur de la Vérune, with domains worth 60,000 livres in annual revenue. True, other sees in the province were older; Narbonne, Toulouse, and Albi had archbishops. But when the prelates joined in processions of the Provincial Estates in Montpellier, only the bishop of Montpellier marched in pink. The other twenty-three wore black, except for the archbishop of Narbonne, whose preeminence also gave him the right to pink. And in municipal processions, the pink robes of Montpellier’s bishop stood out against the deep, black robes and the gray fur hoods of the canons, who marched according to rank: four Dignitaires, four Personnats, and fifteen Simples Chanoines. Then came the most solemn segment of the procession, the Host, displayed in a monstrance mounted on an elaborate processional altar under a canopy carried by the town’s six consuls.

担任城镇最高市政职务的执政官们，标志着游行队伍中宗教和世俗权威汇合之处。他们身着猩红色礼服，头戴紫色缎子兜帽，每人代表一个团体。前三位执政官由省长从“绅士”、“生活优渥的资产阶级”以及律师或公证人中分别任命。 ¹¹后三位执政官由市政主要机构——加强市政委员会（Conseil de Ville Renforcé）选出，分别来自以下几个团体：第一，商人、外科医生、药剂师或职员；第二，金匠、假发匠、酿酒师、挂毯匠或其他“体面行业” （métier honnête）的成员；第三，来自某个传统行业（corps de métiers）的工匠大师。¹²执政官们也代表蒙彼利埃的第三等级（平民）出席省议会会议。诚然，在这样的场合，他们与主教相比显得微不足道，因为他们只穿着短袍，不能发表讲话。但他们可以获得一份礼仪礼物——价值600里弗尔的四块怀表，而且在市政游行中，他们身着盛装，在圣体旁列队，显得格外引人注目。在一些游行中，他们身边还有十几名身着长袍的圣体圣事会成员，手持蜡烛，与圣体并肩而行。一支身着礼服的卫兵队伍总是护送着这支队伍，他们是整个游行的核心。

The consuls, who occupied the top municipal offices of the town, marked the point in the procession where the religious and civil authorities were joined. Each of them paraded in ceremonial robes of scarlet with purple satin hoods, and each represented a corporate group. The first three were named by the governor of the province from the ranks of “gentlemen,” “bourgeois living nobly,” and attorneys or notaries, respectively.¹¹ The second three were selected by the main municipal body, the Conseil de Ville Renforcé, and came from the following groups of corporate bodies: first, merchants, surgeons, apothecaries, or clerks; second, goldsmiths, wig makers, distillers, tapestry makers, or members of another ”respectable trade” (métier honnête) ; and third, a master artisan from one of the established trades (corps de métiers).¹² The consuls also represented the Third Estate (commoners) of Montpellier at meetings of the Provincial Estates. To be sure, they seemed insignificant in comparison with the bishop on such occasions, for they wore only short robes and could not make speeches. But they collected a ceremonial gift of four watches worth 600 livres, and in municipal processions they cut quite a figure, marching in full regalia beside the Holy Sacrament. In some processions they were accompanied by a dozen robed members of the Archiconfrérie du Saint-Sacrément, who walked alongside the Host carrying candles. A detachment of guards in dress uniform always escorted this section, the heart of the whole parade.

城中其他主要官员按等级和尊贵顺序继续列队行进。一队身着礼服、骑着马的省长卫队为该地区最高法院——辅理法院的法官们开路。辅理法院实际上由三个法庭组成，分别处理不同的法律和行政问题，但其成员按荣誉等级列队。首先是省长，通常是一位出身王室的贵族，在正式场合以名誉省长的身份主持法庭。他两侧通常由身着相应礼服的指挥官和副总督陪同。接下来是正式的法官们：^十三位身着黑色丝绸长袍、外罩猩红色长袍、头戴貂皮兜帽的省长；六十五位顾问长官，着同样的服装，但稍稍落后一步；十八位身着黑色锦缎长袍的税务顾问；二十六位身着黑色塔夫绸长袍的审计顾问；三位国王公使（国家律师）和一位书记官，他们的着装与首席税务顾问类似，但前提是他们必须拥有法学学位；一位首席执达吏，身着丝绸长袍和猩红色长袍，但兜帽没有毛皮；以及八位身着粉色长袍的执达吏。接下来是法国财政大臣，共三十一人，其中包括四位国王公使和三位书记官，他们都身着黑色缎子长袍。他们富有且地位显赫，因为他们拥有对大部分税收征管的最高法律权力。

The other leading officials of the town continued the line of march according to their rank and dignity. A company of guards from the Prévoté Générale in ceremonial dress and mounted on horses led the way for the magistrates of the Cour des Aides, the highest court in the area. The Cour actually comprised three chambers, which dealt with different legal and administrative questions, but its members processed according to places d’honneur. ¹³ First came the governor of the province, usually a nobleman of royal blood, who presided over the court on ceremonial occasions as its honorific Premier Président. He was usually flanked by his Commandants and Lieutenants-Géneraux, all appropriately robed. Then came the magistrates proper: thirteen Présidents in black silk soutanes under scarlet robes with ermine hoods; sixty-five Conseillers-Maîtres in the same costume but set back a pace; eighteen Conseillers-Correcteurs in robes of black damask; twenty-six Conseillers-Auditeurs in black taffeta; three Gens du Roi (state attorneys) with a Greffier (clerk) in robes like those of the Conseillers-Maîtres, provided they had received a law degree; a Premier Huissier (bailiff) in a silk soutane and a scarlet robe but a hood without fur; and eight Huissiers in pink robes. The Trésoriers de France came next, thirty-one strong, including four Gens du Roi and three Greffiers, all dressed in black satin. They were wealthy and important, for they had the ultimate legal authority over most tax gathering.

游行队伍最后由一长串来自总统府或下级法院的官员结束：两名院长、一名法师、一名刑事法官、一名中尉、一名中尉、两名荣誉顾问、十二名顾问、一名检察官、一名国王律师、一名厨师以及各种各样的检察官和酿酒师。总统们穿着猩红色的长袍游行，但没有戴头巾，也没有毛皮装饰。其他军官则凭借特殊的特权，都穿着黑缎子的衣服。

The procession closed with a long string of officials from the Présidial or lower court: two Présidents, a Juge-Mage, a Juge-Criminel, a Lieutenant Principal, a Lieutenant Particulier, two Conseillers d’Honneur, twelve Conseillers, a Procureur, an Avocat du Roi, a Greffier en Chef, and an assortment of Procureurs and Huissiers. The Présidents marched in scarlet robes but without hoods or fur trim. The other officers, by virtue of a special privilege, wore black satin.

游行队伍在此结束，抵达了地方官员等级中一个相当高的位置。它本可以延伸到作者在文章接下来的章节中描述的其他机构：总督府（Prévôté Générale）、皇家造币厂（Hotel des Monnaies）、皇家法官（Juges Royaux）、教会法庭、封建法庭和商事法庭、加强委员会（Conseil Renforcé）和二十四委员会（Conseil des Vingt-Quatre），以及众多专员、督察、收款员、财务官和支付员，他们充斥着皇家官僚机构的地方分支机构。这些官员会在适当的场合身着相应的服装参加游行，但他们不会参加盛大的游行（parasion générales） 。盛大的游行是庄严的仪式，只为城市最高贵的人物 和一年中最重要的节日——宗教节日（如圣母节，la Fête-Dieu）和世俗节日（如国王节，le Voeu du Roi）——而设。盛大的游行队伍 呈现出令人印象深刻的视听盛宴，色彩斑斓，质感丰富。号角齐鸣，马蹄踏过鹅卵石路面，熙熙攘攘的达官显贵们穿梭而过，有的穿着靴子，有的穿着凉鞋，有的头戴羽饰，有的身披麻衣。官员们的蕾丝和皮草镶边衬托出鲜艳的红色和蓝色，与僧侣们沉闷的黑色和棕色形成鲜明对比。缎子、丝绸和锦缎铺满了街道——一条由长袍和制服组成的浩瀚长龙蜿蜒穿过城市，十字架和权杖不时浮现，烛光在队伍中跳跃摇曳。

The procession ended here, at a rather elevated point in the hierarchy of local officials. It could have extended to the other corporate bodies that our author went on to describe in the next sections of his essay: the Prévôté Générale; the Hotel des Monnaies; the Juges Royaux; the ecclesiastical, feudal, and commercial courts; the Conseil Renforcé and Conseil des Vingt-Quatre; and the swarm of commissaires, inspecteurs, receveurs, trésoriers, and payeurs, who swelled the local branches of the royal bureaucracy. These officials appeared in processions in appropriate costumes on appropriate occasions, but they did not participate in processions générales, which were solemn affairs, reserved for the highest dignités of the city and the most important holidays of the year, both religious (la Fête-Dieu) and civil (le Voeu du Roi). A procession générale provided an impressive display of sound, color, and texture. Trumpets pealed; horses’ hoofs clattered over the cobblestones; a throng of dignitaries tramped by, some in boots and some in sandals, some under plumes and some in sackcloth. Different shades of red and blue stood out against the lace and fur trim of the magistrates and contrasted with the dull blacks and browns of the monks. Great sweeps of satin, silk, and damask filled the streets—a vast stream of robes and uniforms winding through the city, with crosses and maces bobbing up here and there and the flames of candles dancing all along its course.

现代美国人或许会忍不住将这场盛会与玫瑰碗或梅西感恩节游行相提并论，但这绝非明智之举。蒙彼利埃的盛大游行并非为了煽动民众或刺激贸易，而是为了展现城市社会的集体秩序。它是一种在街头展开的宣言，城市借此向自身——有时也向上帝——展示自身，因为当蒙彼利埃面临干旱或饥荒的威胁时，游行也会举行。然而，在尘埃落定、盛装收起两个世纪之后，我们又该如何解读它呢？

A modern American might be tempted to compare this spectacle with a Rose Bowl or a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, but nothing could be more misleading. A procession générale in Montpellier did not stir up fans or stimulate trade; it expressed the corporate order of urban society. It was a statement unfurled in the streets, through which the city represented itself to itself—and sometimes to God, for it also took place when Montpellier was threatened by drought or famine. But how can one read it two centuries after the dust has settled and the robes were packed away?

幸运的是，我们的当地线人煞费苦心地解释了各种细节。例如，他指出，一些辅理法院的成员并不穿红色，因为红色是专供受过法律教育的法官使用的。法院里有相当一部分年轻人，他们没有上过大学，却通过金钱购买了官职。在受过教育的人眼中，他们格外引人注目：主席们身着饰有貂皮的黑色天鹅绒长袍，而顾问们则穿着饰有貂皮的黑色缎面长袍。我们的线人还对长袍的颜色和面料所代表的地位和收入了如指掌。主席们拥有完整的、可世袭的贵族血统；被尊称为“先生”；拥有“委托审判权”（由同侪在主权法庭进行审判）；享有某些税收豁免（免除 封地税和土地税）；并且从他们的官职中领取6000里弗尔的月薪以及各种费用，而他们的官职总成本高达11万里弗尔。顾问们享有同样的特权和同样的司法职能；但他们的贵族身份要到第三代才能完全传承；他们被称为“先生”；他们的年收入只有 4,000 里弗尔，而官职的成本却高达 60,000 里弗尔。

Fortunately, our native informant took great pains to explicate details. He noted, for example, that some members of the Cour des Aides did not wear red, a color reserved for magistrates who had studied law. The court contained a distressing proportion of young men who purchased their office without passing through the university. They stood out to the educated eye, the Présidents marching in black velvet trimmed with ermine and the Conseillers in black satin erminé. Our man also knew all about the status and income that corresponded with the color and fabric of the robes. The Présidents possessed full, transmissible nobility; were addressed as Messire; had the right of commitmus (trial by peers in a sovereign court); enjoyed certain fiscal exemptions (dispensation from franc-fief and from lods et ventes); and received 6,000 livres plus various fees from their offices, which had cost them 110,000 livres apiece. The Conseillers had the same privileges and the same judicial functions; but their nobility was not fully transmissible until the third generation; they were addressed as Monsieur; and their annual income came to only 4,000 livres from offices that had cost 60,000.

游行队伍中的神职人员也遵循着同样的规则。作者列举了所有隐含在行进顺序中的头衔、特权、收入和职责。走在最前面的多明我会修士历史最悠久，每年可领取6000里弗尔。奥斯定会修士位居中游，年收入4000里弗尔，而新晋的慈悲神父会（Pères de la Merci）则垫底，年收入仅为2000里弗尔，且没有像样的修道院。作者从这些修士的袍服下看到了大量的肥肉。他注意到，许多拥有宏伟建筑和丰厚捐赠的修道院，却只有三四个碌碌无为的修士。 在他看来，这些修士毫无尊严可言。

The same set of correspondences held for the clergy in the procession. Our author listed all the titles, privileges, incomes, and functions inscribed implicitly in the order of march. The Dominicans, who marched first, had the oldest foundation and received 6,000 livres a year. The Augustins occupied a middle rank and received 4,000, while the arrivistes Pères de la Merci, who received only 2,000 and did not have a proper monastery, brought up the end. Our author saw a great deal of fat under the robes. He noted that many monasteries with vast buildings and large endowments sheltered only three or four unproductive priests. Monks had little dignité in his eyes.

教授们拥有很多。他赞许地注意到，蒙彼利埃大学的皇家教授们身着深红色缎袍，头戴貂皮兜帽。在法学院，他们被称为“法学骑士”（Chevaliers ès-Lois），这一头衔赋予他们不可继承的贵族身份，并有权身着法袍、脚蹬金马刺长靴，安葬于敞开的棺材中。诚然，他们每年仅能领取1800里弗尔的薪水（而地位较低的副教授，身着黑色长袍，年薪仅为200里弗尔），作者认为这样的收入与他们“地位”的“高贵”格格不入。 ¹⁴但“尊严”或“品质”（用他最喜欢的词来说）并非源于财富。教授们之所以是法律界的骑士，是因为他们学识的高贵，而身着金马刺入土比留下巨额财富更为重要。

Professors had a great deal. He observed with approval that the Professeurs Royaux of the University of Montpellier wore crimson satin with ermine hoods. In the law faculty they were known as Chevaliers ès-Lois, a title that gave them nontransmissible nobility and the right to be buried in an open coffin wearing their robes and boots with gold spurs. To be sure, they received only 1,800 livres a year (and the lesser Docteurs-Agrégés, who wore only black gowns, got only 200 livres), an income that our author thought incompatible with the “nobility” of their “estate.”¹⁴ But “dignity” or “quality” (to use his favorite terms) did not derive from wealth. Professors were knights of the law because of the noble character of their knowledge, and it was more important to go to the grave with golden spurs than to leave a fortune behind.

因此，财富、地位和权力并非在单一的社会准则中步调一致。正如《描述》中所展现的那样，人间百态充满了复杂性和矛盾。大卡尔梅（Grands Carmes）比小卡尔梅（Carmes Déchaussés）更受尊敬，但财富却更少。法国财政官（Trésoriers de France）的官职价值远高于辅政院（Cour des Aides）的顾问（Conseillers），但在游行队伍中的地位和声望却远逊于后者。皇家总督（royal governor）虽然走在宫廷队伍的最前面，年薪20万里弗尔，但与年薪仅7万里弗尔且根本不参加游行的督察长（entinant）相比，他的权力微乎其微。

Thus wealth, status, and power did not join lock-step in a single social code. There were complexities and contradictions in the human comedy as it paraded in the Description. The Grands Carmes were more venerable but less rich than the Carmes Déchaussés. The Trésoriers de France owned offices worth far more than those of the Conseillers in the Cour des Aides but enjoyed less esteem and a less prestigious place in the processions. The royal governor, who marched at the head of the Cour and received 200,000 livres a year, had little power in comparison with the intendant, who received only 70,000 livres and did not join in the procession at all.

那些未参与游行的团体使情况变得复杂得多，因为尽管他们没有出现在游行队伍中，却影响了旁观者，至少是《 描述》作者的感知。他注意到，在宗教机构等级中位列中游的圣三一会（Trinitaires）已经衰落，不再出现在游行队伍中。曾经富有而强大的耶稣会（Jesuits）也不再跟随雷克莱会（Récollets）行进，因为他们已被逐出王国。新兴但非常受欢迎的兄弟会“蓝衣忏悔者”（Pénitents Bleus）原本想走在“白衣忏悔者”（Pénitents Blancs）前面；但争执失败后，他们不得不彻底退出游行。游行队伍中的其他三个兄弟会深知不该挑战“白衣忏悔者”；但他们通过接受从属地位，向其他八个同样只能站在队伍边缘的兄弟会表达了他们的立场。作者仔细列出了这八个团体，并指出由于他们被排除在游行队伍之外，因此并不“为公众所知”。 ¹⁵同样，他也列举了那些没有参加游行的市政队伍——总督府、造币厂等等。在其他场合，这些队伍都可以身着羽饰和长袍在街上游行；但在盛大的游行中，在围城要塞的最后一名卫兵身后划出了一条界线——除此之外，任何队伍都没有足够的尊严参加最高级别的市政仪式。这些被排除在外的团体因其在游行队伍中的明显缺席而给观察者留下了深刻的印象。他们属于负面类别，而这些类别对于理解整个游行的意义至关重要，因为如果不注意到那些空白之处以及那些盛装打扮的队伍，就无法正确解读一场游行。

The nonparaders complicated the picture considerably because although they did not appear in the line of march they inflected the perceptions of the onlookers, or at least of the author of the Description. He noted that the Trinitaires, who belonged just below the half-way mark in the hierarchy of religious houses, had fallen on hard times and had ceased to figure in processions. The Jesuits, once rich and powerful, no longer marched behind the Récollets because they had been expelled from the kingdom. The Pénitents Bleus, a new but very popular confraternity, had wanted to march ahead of the Pénitents Blancs; and having lost the dispute, they had to retire from the processions altogether. The three other confraternities in the line of march knew better than to challenge the Blancs; but by accepting a subordinate place, they asserted themselves against eight other confraternities, who also had to stand on the sidelines. Our author carefully listed the eight, noting that they were not “publicly known” owing to their exclusion from the processions.¹⁵ In the same way, he went over the municipal corps who did not participate in the procession—the Prévôté Générale, Hotel des Monnaies, and so on. Each could walk about the streets, plumed and robed, on other occasions; but in a procession générale a line was drawn behind the last Huissier of the Siege Presidial—beyond that no corps possessed enough dignity to march in the supreme civic ceremonies. The excluded stood out in the minds of the observers by their conspicuous absence from the ranks of the paraders. They belonged to negative categories, which were crucial to the meaning of the whole, for one could not read a procession properly without noting the blank spots as well as the units that bulged with pomp and circumstance.

那么，这一切的意义究竟何在？游行队伍不能被简单地视为社会的缩影，因为它夸大了某些方面，而忽略了另一些方面。神职人员主导着游行队伍，但在像我们作者这样的观察者眼中，他们的威望却微乎其微。作者注意到，无论僧侣们在圣母节游行队伍中显得多么威风凛凛，他们如今都不再受邀参加上流社会的晚宴。他还强调，蒙彼利埃是一座商业城市，市民们对财富抱有相当的尊重。然而，游行队伍却给予穷人相当重要的地位，而留给商人的空间却寥寥无几，更遑论制造商。游行队伍几乎忽略了所有工匠、日工和仆人——他们构成了人口的大多数；而且，游行队伍也排除了所有新教徒——每六个市民中就有一个是新教徒。

What then was the meaning of the whole? A procession could not be taken literally as a model of society, because it exaggerated some elements and neglected others. The clergy dominated the processions, but they had very little prestige in the eyes of observers like our author, who noted that monks were no longer invited to dinner in polite society, however grand they might appear in the line of march on the Fête-Dieu. He also stressed that Montpellier was a commercial city, where citizens showed a healthy respect for wealth. Yet processions gave a significant place to the poor, while leaving very little room for merchants and none at all for manufacturers. They also omitted nearly all the artisans, day laborers, and servants who formed the bulk of the population; and they excluded all Protestants—one citizen of every six.

但游行并非社会结构的微缩复制品；它们表达了社会的本质，以及其最重要的 品质和尊严。在《描述》中，一个人的“品质”是由其所属的团体等级或职务决定的，而非由勇敢或智慧等个人特质决定的。文本还假定社会是由团体单元而非自由个体构成，并且这些团体属于一个等级制度，而这种等级制度体现在游行队伍中。然而，这种等级制度并非以简单的线性顺序行进。正如白衣忏悔者和蓝衣忏悔者之间的争执所表明的那样，先后顺序是一个至关重要的原则，但它呈现出复杂的形式。教士们跟随在地位较低的助理牧师之后，后者在教会等级制度中处于较低位置；然而，在教士队伍内部，地位较高的人走在最前面。游行队伍的不同部分遵循着不同的划分界限——不仅是神职人员与平信徒之间的划分，还包括正规教士与世俗教士之间的划分；不仅是上级法院与下级法院之间的较量，而且是各级法院内部的法官与国王检察官（国家律师）之间的较量。

But processions did not operate as miniature replicas of the social structure; they expressed the essence of society, its most important qualités and dignités. In the Description a person’s “quality” was determined by corporate rank or office rather than by individual characteristics like bravery or intelligence. The text also assumes that society was composed of corporate units, not free-floating individuals, and that the corps belonged to a hierarchy, which was embodied in the processions. The hierarchy did not file by in a straightforward, linear order, however. As the quarrel between the Pénitents Blancs and the Pénitents Bleus demonstrated, precedence was a vital principle, but it took complex forms. The canons followed the curates, who occupied a lower rank within the ecclesiastical hierarchy; yet within the corps of canons the higher ranks marched first. Different segments of the procession followed different lines of division—not merely clerics versus laymen, but regular versus secular clergy; not merely the upper versus the lower tribunals, but the magistrates versus the Gens du Roi (state attorneys) within each court.

然而，一种总体的组织形态依然清晰可见。随着游行队伍的行进，队伍的层级逐渐升高，从兄弟会成员开始，依次是正规神职人员、世俗神职人员，最后是主教和大教堂的教士们，他们护送着圣体——也就是基督的活生生的临在。此时，游行队伍中最神圣的部分，教会秩序逐渐过渡到平民社会，因为覆盖在圣体上的华盖是由六位执政官或市政当局的主要官员抬着的。他们又分为两组，前三位来自贵族和 佃农阶层，后三位来自行会的高级会长。就这样，王国的三个传统阶层——神职人员、贵族和平民——汇聚在了游行队伍的中心。随后，游行队伍蜿蜒穿过一系列市政队伍，这些队伍按照重要性递减的顺序依次经过。游行者的尊严更多地源于游行队伍内部的等级划分，而非他们与路边衣衫褴褛的普通民众之间的对比。在蒙彼利埃，如同在印度一样，等级森严的社会结构并非源于社会两极分化，而是源于社会的分化。 ¹⁶社会秩序并非划分阶级，而是以不同程度的尊严在旁观者眼中缓缓流淌。

Nonetheless, a general morphology stood out. The ranks mounted as the procession passed, progressing from the confraternities to the regular clergy, the secular clergy, and the bishop with the canons of the cathedral accompanying the Host—that is, the living presence of Christ. At this point, the most sacred in the procession, the ecclesiastical order shaded off into civil society, for the canopy over the Host was carried by the six Consuls or principal officials of the municipal government. They in turn were divided, the first three coming from the patriciate of noblemen and rentiers, the second from the upper ranks of guild masters. In this way the three traditional estates of the realm—clergy, nobility, and commoners—came together in the heart of the procession. And then the procession wound down through a suite of municipal corps, which passed by in descending order of importance. The dignity of the marchers derived from distinctions drawn within the line of march even more than from the contrast between them and the unwashed general public on the sidelines. In Montpellier, as in India, homo hierarchicus thrived through the segmentation of society rather than from its polarization.¹⁶ Instead of dividing into classes, the social order rippled past the onlooker in graduated degrees of dignités.

如描述中所述，旁观者看到的并非仅仅是等级的表面划分，他还注意到那些无形的界限，因为他知道谁被排除在游行队伍之外，也知道谁被纳入其中。排除与纳入属于同一划界过程，这一过程既发生在人们的头脑中，也发生在街头巷尾。但这些界限的力量源于实际的行动。一场盛大的游行 赋予了现实秩序。它并非仅仅为了某种功利目的——例如结束旱灾或彰显贵族身份。它的存在方式如同许多宣言和艺术作品——纯粹的表达，一种社会秩序的自我呈现。

The onlooker, as represented by the Description, did not merely see the ostensible divisions of rank. He also noticed invisible demarcations, for he knew who had been excluded from the processions as well as who had been included. Exclusion and inclusion belonged to the same process of boundary drawing, a process that took place in men’s minds as well as in the streets. But the boundaries acquired their force by being acted out. A procession générale ordered reality. It was not merely aimed at some utilitarian objective—the end of a drought or the promotion of the nobility of the robe. It existed the way many statements and works of art exist—as sheer expression, a social order representing itself to itself.

但游行队伍的语言陈旧过时，无法传达世纪中叶经济扩张所带来的社会秩序格局的变迁。作者深知世界正在发生变化，却无法定义这些变化，也找不到合适的词语来表达。随着他笔锋一转，开始着手寻找合适的术语， 尤其是在描述蒙彼利埃的社会经济生活而非官方机构时。在题为“贵族与居民阶级”的章节中，他突然停笔，转换了比喻。这座城市不再是“尊严游行”的场景，而变成了一个由三个等级“阶层” （etats）构成的社会结构。

But the language of the processions was archaic. It could not convey the shifting alignments within the social order that resulted from the economic expansion of the mid-century years. Our author knew that his world was changing, though he could not define the changes or find words to express them. He began to grope for an adequate terminology as he neared the second half of his Description, which concerned the social and economic life of Montpellier rather than its official institutions. When he reached the half-way point, in a chapter entitled “Nobility, Classes of Inhabitants,” he suddenly stopped and changed metaphors. The city no longer appeared as a parade of dignités. It became a three-tiered structure of “estates” (etats).

这种说话方式在当时的省份和王国中是自然而然的，因为人们仍然将人分为传统的三个等级：祈祷者（神职人员或第一等级）、战士（贵族或第二等级）和劳动者（其余大部分人口或第三等级）。但我们的作者对这些等级进行了彻底的重新划分，以至于破坏了它们传统的意义。他完全剔除了神职人员，理由是“在这个城市里，神职人员并不受人尊敬。他们在日常事务中没有任何影响力。” ^¹⁷因此，他一举排除了在标准的三等级制度和他 描述的前半部分中占据最显著地位的群体。然后，他将贵族提升到“第一等级”（该词必须加引号，以区别于常规用法）。他解释说，蒙彼利埃没有显赫的封建家族。其“第一等级”仅包括身着长袍的贵族——即通过担任要职而获得贵族身份的官员，而非旧式的武士贵族。尽管这些新近获得贵族头衔的资产阶级在法律上可以被归类为“第一等级”内的第二阶层，但他们在日常生活中与其他富裕市民并无二致：“这些（身着长袍的）贵族身份在这个城市里并没有带来任何特殊的地位、权威或特权，因为在这里，财产和财富通常决定一切。” ¹⁸

This manner of speaking came naturally in a province and a kingdom where men were still understood to fit into the three traditional categories of those who prayed (the clergy or First Estate), those who fought (the nobility or Second Estate), and those who worked (the remaining bulk of the population or Third Estate). But our author rearranged the categories so thoroughly as to destroy their traditional meaning. He eliminated the clergy altogether, on the grounds that “it is not much esteemed in this city. It has no influence whatever in daily affairs.”¹⁷ Thus in one bold stroke he excluded the group that figured most prominently in the standard version of the three estates and in the first half of his Description. Then he elevated the nobility to the rank of “First Estate” (the term must be put within quotation marks to distinguish it from conventional usage). Montpellier had no great feudal families, he explained. Its “First Estate” merely included nobles of the robe—that is, magistrates who had acquired nobility through ownership of important offices as opposed to the older feudal nobles of the sword. Although these recently ennobled bourgeois could be classed juridically as a second division within the “First Estate,” they did not differ from other wealthy citizens in the way they lived their everyday lives: “These nobilities [of the robe] give no particular distinction, authority, or privilege in this city, where in general possessions and wealth count for everything.”¹⁸

接下来，作者将资产阶级置于传统上贵族所在的“第二等级”。正如他所使用的措辞所表明的那样，这也是他效忠的对象：

Next, our author placed the bourgeoisie where the nobility was traditionally located, in the “Second Estate.” This was also where he lodged his own loyalties, as his choice of words made clear:

作者将“第三等级”描述为一个老式的 工匠阶层，而非工人阶级。他将其成员称为“工匠”和“平民”，并将其分为三个“分支”：既用脑又用手的工匠（artistes）；从事机械行业的工匠（métiers mécaniques）；以及日工和农业工人，因为像大多数早期现代城市一样，蒙彼利埃也包含大片乡村地区——由相当数量的劳动力耕种的花园和田地。 ²⁰最后还有家仆和失业贫民。作者将他们列在劳动者之后，但并未将他们纳入其分类体系，因为除了少数获得官方许可的乞丐和总医院的贫民外，他们没有任何社会群体。他们生活在城市社会之外，并不构成一个等级，尽管他们随处可见，熙熙攘攘地穿梭于大街小巷。

The author presented the “Third Estate” as an old-fashioned artisanat rather than as a working class. He described its members as “the artisans” and “the common people” and divided it into three “branches”: artisans who worked with their minds as well as their hands (artistes); artisans who worked in mechanical trades (métiers mécaniques); and day laborers and agricultural workers, for, like most early modern cities, Montpellier included a great deal of country—gardens and fields that were cultivated by a sizeable labor force.²⁰ Finally there were domestic servants and the unemployed poor. The author listed them after the laborers, but he excluded them from his classification scheme, because they did not have any corporate existence, except in the case of a few officially licensed beggars and the paupers of the Hôpital Général. They lived outside of urban society and did not constitute an estate, although they could be seen everywhere swarming through the streets.

这种描述社会结构的方式颇为奇特——而《描述》的后半部分确实带有结构性的意味，让人联想起蒙彼利埃坚固的联排别墅，与之前熙熙攘攘的人群形成鲜明对比。资产阶级占据了这座建筑的主层，将贵族从二层（piano nobile）挤到了顶层，而平民百姓则被困在楼下。然而，等级制度的语言并不比贵族阶层的语言更现代。作者使用了一套陈旧的分类体系，剥离了它们原有的含义，并重新排列组合，从而描绘出一种类似于十九世纪即将公开出现的社会秩序的形态：一个由旧精英和新贵混合组成的“显贵”社会；一个巴尔扎克式的社会，其基本力量是财富，但财富并非来自工业革命，而是来自土地、官职、地租和贸易等传统来源。

It was an odd way to describe a social structure—and the second half of the Description had a structural aspect to it, something that evoked one of Montpellier’s solid town houses in contrast to the procession that had swirled by earlier. The bourgeoisie occupied the main floor of the edifice, having pushed the nobility from the piano nobile into the top of the superstructure, while the common people remained below stairs. But the language of estates was no more modern than the language of dignities. Our author used an antiquated set of categories, emptied them of their old meanings, and rearranged them in such a way as to convey the shape of a social order like the one that would emerge openly in the nineteenth century: a society of “notables” dominated by a mixture of the old elite and the nouveaux riches; a Balzacian society in which the basic force was wealth, but wealth was derived from traditional sources—land, offices, rentes, and trade—rather than from an industrial revolution.

那么，资产阶级究竟是什么？作者毫不掩饰地使用了这个词。但他并没有给出定义，而是列举了一些例子，其中大部分是专业人士——医生、律师、公证人——以及一些商人，最后是赋予这一阶层名称的社会类型，即纯粹的“资产阶级”：也就是说，一个不从事任何职业，仅靠土地租金和年金生活的人。当这个词出现在《描述》中时，听起来颇为古老：“过着高贵生活的资产阶级”，“只靠地租生活的资产阶级”。²¹这类人对工业化贡献甚微。诚然，他们当中也包括一些金融家和商人，但他们是在自中世纪以来就存在的商业资本主义体系中运作的。与地租者不同，企业家 在《描述》中明显缺席——尤其考虑到当时蒙彼利埃已经存在少量企业家。法雷尔先生 和帕利埃先生在他们的纺织厂雇佣了1200名工人，但我们的作者并没有提及他们或他们的工厂。相反，他详细列出了城里所有的行业。就像植物学家列举动植物一样，他区分了所有可能的工匠种类，重点介绍了当地的特色——手套匠、香水商、维迪格里斯商人——并涵盖了早期现代城市中随处可见的各种工匠：鞋匠、锡器匠、裁缝、鞍匠、锁匠、金匠、玻璃匠、铜匠、假发匠、绳索匠。这份清单涵盖了数百家作坊，并被一些如今已消失的、难以翻译的行业名称所淹没——例如 芒格诺尼工匠、罗马工匠、花边工匠、帕勒马迪工匠、羽毛工匠和潘古斯蒂工匠。它展现了一种手工艺经济的景象，经济被分割成无数个小单元，并被行会所包围，这是一个由工匠和店主组成的小世界，似乎与工业革命相隔几个世纪。

What then was the bourgeoisie? Our author used the word unblushingly. But instead of defining it, he cited examples, most of them professional men—doctors, lawyers, notaries-along with a few merchants and finally the social type who gave the category its name, the “bourgeois” pure and simple: that is, a man who lived from land rents and annuities without exercising any profession. When the term appeared in the Description, it had an archaic ring to it: “the bourgeois living nobly,” “the bourgeois who lives only from rentes.”²¹ This species contributed very little to industrialization. True, it included some financiers and merchants, but they operated within a system of commercial capitalism that had existed since the Middle Ages. The entrepreneur, in contrast to the rentier, was conspicuous by his absence from the Description-all the more so as he already existed, in small numbers, in Montpellier. The sieurs Farel and Parlier employed 1,200 workers in their textile fabriques, but our author did not mention them or their mills. Instead, he produced an elaborate catalogue of all the trades in the city. Like a botanist enumerating flora and fauna, he distinguished every possible variety of artisan, emphasizing local specialties—glove makers, perfumers, traders in veidigris—and working through the types that proliferated everywhere in early modern cities: cobblers, pewterers, tailors, saddlers, locksmiths, goldsmiths, glaziers, braziers, wig makers, rope makers. The list stretched into hundreds of workshops and lost itself in untranslatable trades—the mangonniers, romainiers, passementiers, palemardiers, plumassiers, and pangustiers—that have since become extinct. It conveyed a sense of a handicraft economy, cut into tiny units and hedged about by guilds, a little world of artisans and shopkeepers that seemed centuries away from an industrial revolution.

我们的作者显然对这个世界感到自在。他对工业的价值抱有怀疑：

Our author clearly felt at home in this world. He had doubts about the value of industry:

这些言论中夹杂着些许重农主义理论和对奢侈的时髦贬低，但作者对承担风险、扩大生产、提高利润率或任何其他体现现代进取精神的活动都毫无好感。他欣喜地表示，蒙彼利埃的制造业“规模很小”，然后解释道：“正是因为规模小，所以才保持健康。我们的制造商只生产他们确信能卖出去的量，不拿别人的财富冒险，并且确信自己能够继续经营下去。这种行为非常谨慎。少量但确定的利润，可以定期获得，无疑比那些永远无法确定结果的风险投机更有价值。” ²³说话的是一位“旧制度下的资产阶级”，而不是一位实业家或资本主义的辩护者。但是，如果他的经济学观念看起来完全落后，那么是什么因素使他对事物的总体看法带有了不可化约、不可避免的资产阶级色彩呢？

A touch of Physiocratic theory and some fashionable deprecation of luxury colored those remarks, but the author had no sympathy for the taking of risks, the expanding of production, the widening of profit margins, or any other activity that suggested a modern spirit of enterprise. He rejoiced that manufacturing in Montpellier “amounts to very little,” and then explained, “Its lack of importance is what keeps it healthy. Our manufacturers only produce as much as they are sure to sell, do not risk the wealth of others, and remain certain of continuing in business. This kind of behavior is very prudent. A small but certain profit, which can be regularly repeated, is doubtless worth more than risky speculations, about which one can never be sure.”²³ There spoke a “bourgeois d’Ancien Régime,” not a captain of industry or an apologist of capitalism. But if his notions of economics seem downright backward, what was it that tinctured his general view of things in a way that seems irreducibly, unavoidably bourgeois?

从他的文字来看，这个人骨子里觉得自己是个资产阶级；但就他所描述的情况而言，这种感觉与他对经济秩序的认知（或误解）关系不大，而是源于他对社会的解读。他将“资产阶级”与蒙彼利埃的另外两个主要“阶级”——贵族和平民——对立起来。这两个阶级都以各自的方式对他构成威胁。因此，他密切关注着它们的边界，并通过与敌对邻居的关系，对资产阶级的地位进行了负面的界定。

Judging from his text, our man felt himself to be bourgeois in his bones; but that feeling, insofar as one can understand it from the Description, had little to do with his perceptions and misperceptions of the economic order. It derived from the way he read society. He situated the “Bourgeois Estate” in opposition to the two other main “estates” of Montpellier, the nobility and the common people. Each of them seemed threatening in its own way. So he kept a close watch on their borders and thus defined the position of the bourgeoisie negatively, by reference to its hostile neighbors.

尽管作者深知社会地位所蕴含的尊严的重要性，但他却摒弃了贵族式的荣誉观念。相反，他对金钱抱有敬畏之心。他强调，在蒙彼利埃的上流社会，财富而非荣誉才是最重要的，尽管在图卢兹等贵族城市，情况有所不同。

Despite his sensitivity to the importance of the dignité attached to social positions, our author rejected the aristocratic notion of honor. Instead, he showed a healthy respect for money. It was wealth not honor that counted in the upper ranks of Montpellier, he emphasized, though things were different in aristocratic cities like Toulouse.

贵族与平民之间的区别最终可以归结为财富问题，一种以嫁妆来衡量的老式财富：在“第一等级”，新娘出嫁时会带上三万到六万里弗尔；在“第二等级”，她们则带上一万到两万里弗尔。我们的作者认为用这种粗鄙的标准来衡量贵族并无不妥，因为他强调，蒙彼利埃几乎所有的贵族都出身于资产阶级，他们的“身份”是通过购买官职等形式获得的。然而，一旦他们跻身社会上层，就不能从事大多数类型的工作来“贬低”自己；对他们中的许多人来说，“高贵”的生活意味着无所事事。但在我们的作者看来，懒惰——无论是否体面——都是罪大恶极。一个公民首先应该有用。绅士们的无用加上对失去地位的势利眼，使得他们无论在游行队伍中如何趾高气扬、矫揉造作，都令人彻底鄙夷。作者对辅理法院的法官和法国财政官怀有敬意，但他对他们阶层的内在精神深感痛惜：

The distinction between noblemen and commoners could ultimately be reduced to a question of wealth, old-fashioned wealth that was calculated in dowries: in the “First Estate” brides brought thirty to sixty thousand livres to their marriages; in the “Second Estate” they brought ten to twenty thousand. Our author saw nothing untoward in using such a crass standard to take the measure of the nobility because he stressed that virtually all the nobles of Montpellier came from the bourgeoisie and had acquired their “quality” by purchasing it in the form of ennobling offices. Once they entered the top rank of society, however, they could not demean themselves by engaging in most kinds of work; for many of them, living “nobly” meant doing nothing at all. But to our author, idleness—fainéantise, whether genteel or not—was the height of sin. A citizen should above all be useful. Uselessness compounded by snobbery about losing rank made gentlemen thoroughly despicable, no matter how much they strutted and fretted in processions. The author felt deference for magistrates of the Cour des Aides and for Trésoriers de France, but he deplored the underlying spirit of their estate:

这种语气暴露出他对贵族排他性的敏感，削弱了作者对“第一等级”相对不重要性的坚持。他从不放过任何机会批评贵族的免税待遇，尽管在一个主要税收（土地税）不分地主身份地征收的省份，这些免税待遇微不足道；他也总是指出贵族的特权，这些特权同样微不足道（例如，获得委任权、免服市政卫队义务和免缴封地税）；他还嘲讽贵族法官缺乏职业素养，以及诸如为荣誉决斗之类的荒谬做法。他的总体观点与1789年“第三等级”（通常意义上的第三等级，即所有不属于教士或贵族的人）所要求的进步有很多相似之处。

This tone betrayed a touchiness about aristocratic exclusivity that undercut the author’s insistence on the relative unimportance of the “First Estate.” He never passed up an opportunity to criticize the nobles’ tax exemptions, meager as they were in a province where the main tax (la taille) fell on land irrespective of the proprietor’s status; or to point out aristocratic privileges, which were equally trivial (the right of commitmus, exemptions from duty in the municipal guard and from payment of franc-fief); or to deride the lack of professionalism among noble magistrates and the absurdity of practices like dueling over points of honor. His general point of view had many affinities with the demands that the Third Estate in the usual sense of the word—everyone who did not belong to the clergy or nobility—would advance in 1789.

但他听起来并不激进。相反，他赞扬了政府仁慈公正的性质，他的政治评论仿佛出自某个地方长官之口，在那里，政治本质上被视为征税和修路之事。他无法想象一个由自主个体组成的政治团体，这些个体选举代表或直接参与国家事务。他的思维方式是集体主义的。因此，在他看来，当省政府派遣代表团前往凡尔赛宫时，按等级向国王觐见是完全自然的——首先由一位站立的主教代表，然后由一位鞠躬发言的贵族代表，最后由一位（传统意义上的）第三等级成员单膝跪地向国王致辞。类似的观念也影响了他对市政管理的描述。他认为蒙彼利埃很幸运，因为与图卢兹和波尔多的同行不同，蒙彼利埃的执政官不会因其职务而获得贵族头衔。尽管他极不赞成这种册封贵族的做法，但他并未质疑执政官应代表等级而非个人的假设：“这种特权（通过担任市政职务册封贵族）没有被授予是件好事，因为它只会造就一大批贵族，而这些贵族最终会沉沦于游手好闲和贫困之中。此外，按等级提名更为有效，因为这样一来，公民阶层中的每个等级和子等级都有权竞选市政职务。” ²⁶ 我们的资产阶级并不需要贵族这个等级，但他接受等级制度作为社会自然组织的体现。

But he did not sound militant. On the contrary, he praised the benign and equitable character of the government, and his political comments could have come from one of the intendant’s offices, where politics was seen essentially as a matter of collecting taxes and improving roads. Our man could not imagine a political body composed of autonomous individuals who elected representatives or participated directly in the affairs of state. He thought in terms of corporate groups. Thus it seemed perfectly natural to him that when the province sent delegations to Versailles, it should speak to the king by estate—first through a bishop who remained standing, then through a nobleman who spoke while bowing, and finally through a member of the Third Estate (in the conventional meaning of the term) who addressed the throne while kneeling on one knee. Similar notions colored his account of the municipal government. He considered Montpellier fortunate because its consuls did not become ennobled through their offices, unlike their counterparts in Toulouse and Bordeaux. But much as he disapproved of such ennoblement, he did not question the assumption that the consuls should represent orders rather than individuals: “It is a good thing that this privilege [ennoblement through municipal offices] was not granted, for it would only have produced a swarm of noblemen, who would have sunk into idleness and poverty. Furthermore, nomination by ranks is more useful, because in that way each order and sub-order in the division and subdivision of citizens has the right to aspire to the municipal government.”²⁶ Our bourgeois had no use for the nobility as an estate, but he accepted a hierarchy of estates as the natural organization of society.

他似乎也愿意接受一定程度的资产阶级化。真正令他担忧的是平民的资产阶级化，因为“第二等级”最大的危险就潜伏在它与“第三等级”的交界处。卢梭或许能在平民中发现美德，但我们的作者却深知：“平民天性邪恶、放荡，且易受暴乱和劫掠。” ²⁷他将平民的罪恶归纳为四点：（1）他们抓住一切机会欺骗和诈骗雇主；（2）他们从不把工作做好；（3）他们一有机会就偷懒寻欢作乐；（4）他们欠下巨债，却从不偿还。²⁸这份控诉读起来就像是印刷工匠们向杰罗姆灌输的那种不劳而获的道德观的反面版本，而我们这位蒙彼利埃人似乎也观察到了类似的工匠文化，尽管视角截然相反。他承认，工匠们不像贵族那样，他们确实做了些有用的事：他们工作，无论做得多么糟糕。但他们却沉溺于“残暴”。29^他 隐约知道，像杰罗姆这样的人，在他所在的城市里会结成一些与奇怪的入会仪式和无休止的宴饮有关的社团，他对他们那些晦涩难懂的知识只有鄙夷，认为它们“既可悲又荒谬”。30^这些 行为通常会导致暴力，因为没有什么比和同伴们狂欢作乐之后，殴打无辜的路人或与同样沉迷于此的竞争对手的工匠协会发生争执更能让一个工人感到愉悦的了。对这种行为的唯一惩罚是绞刑，或者至少是流放。但当局却过于宽容。他们要求在施以惩罚之前必须有证据，而且惩罚力度也不够，而与“第三等级”共存的唯一方法就是将其控制在自己的位置上。

He also seemed willing to accept a certain amount of ennoblement of the bourgeoisie. It was embourgeoisement of the common people that really alarmed him, for the greatest danger to the “Second Estate” lay along its border with the “Third.” Rousseau might have been able to detect virtue among the common people, but our author knew better: “The common people are naturally bad, licentious, and inclined toward rioting and pillage.”²⁷ He summarized their wickedness under four headings: (1) they duped and cheated their employers at the slightest opportunity; (2) they never did a job right; (3) they knocked off work whenever they spotted an occasion for debauchery; (4) they ran up debts, which they never repaid.²⁸ This indictment read like a negative version of the non-work ethic propounded to Jerome by the journeymen printers, and indeed our Montpelliérain seemed to be observing the same sort of artisanal culture, though from the opposite point of view. He conceded that artisans, unlike noblemen, did something useful: they worked, however badly. But they were given over to “brutality.”²⁹ He knew vaguely that the likes of Jerome in his city formed associations with strange initiation rites and endless meals, and he felt nothing but scorn for their arcane lore, “as pitiful as it is absurd.”³⁰ It generally issued in violence, for nothing pleased a worker more after carousing with his mates than to bash an innocent passerby or to brawl with a rival and equally besotted journeyman’s association. The only cure for such behavior was hanging, or deportation at the very least. But the authorities were far too indulgent. They required proof before meting out punishment and never punished severely enough, whereas the only way to live with the “Third Estate” was to keep it in its place.

这些评论流露出面对异域生活方式的恐惧与不解。作者认为蒙彼利埃正遭受犯罪浪潮的侵袭。“来自底层民众”的青年团伙在街头游荡，抢夺钱包，割喉杀人。31歌舞厅、台球厅、赌场和妓院如雨后春笋般涌现。即使是体面的市民，晚上在国王花园漫步也难免会遇到成群结队的危险喽啰和地痞流氓。阅读这篇^描述，人们会觉得这种危险感源于平民与上流社会之间日益扩大的文化鸿沟——也就是由贵族和富裕资产阶级组成的混合精英阶层，作者称之为“正直之士”（les honnêtes gens）。32^各个等级并非生活在完全隔绝的世界里；事实上，作者遗憾地认为“第三等级”的隔离程度还不够。但每当他描述贵族阶层时，他都会指出它与前两个等级的不同之处——语言、服饰、饮食习惯和娱乐方式的差异。在《罗马帝国史》的后半部分，他对这一主题着墨颇多，以至于最终整部著作变成了一部风俗文化论著，而他所描绘的社会似乎不再是三个等级的划分，而是两个敌对阵营的对立：贵族和平民。

These comments betrayed a mixture of fear and incomprehension in the face of an alien way of living. Our author believed that Montpellier was suffering from a crime wave. Bands of youths “from the dregs of the common people” roamed the streets, snatching purses and slitting throats.³¹ Cabarets, billiard halls, gambling dens, and houses of ill repute were springing up everywhere. A reputable citizen could not even promenade in the Jardin du Roi of an evening without running into dangerous hordes of lackeys and low-life. In reading the Description, one gets the impression that this sense of danger derived from a cultural gap that was opening up between the common people and polite society—that is, a mixed elite of nobles and wealthy bourgeois, whom the author referred to as les honnêtes gens.³² The estates did not inhabit completely separate worlds; in fact our author regretted that the “Third Estate” was not separate enough. But whenever he described it, he noted differences that set it apart from the first two estates—differences in language, dress, eating habits, and amusements. He paid so much attention to this theme in the last part of the Description that in the end it turned into a treatise on customs and culture, and the society it depicted no longer seemed to be segmented into three estates but to be divided into two hostile camps: patricians and plebeians.

蒙彼利埃的每个人都说当地的奥克方言，但所有官方活动都使用法语；因此，前两个等级往往是双语的，而“第三等级”则坚持使用自己的方言。在蒙彼利埃，如同早期现代欧洲其他地方一样，服饰是一种社会规范。绅士穿马裤；劳动者穿长裤。女士们根据季节穿着天鹅绒和丝绸；普通妇女则穿着羊毛和棉布，而且她们的着装并不严格遵循季节。从鞋扣到假发，各种各样的饰品将前两个等级与“第三等级”区分开来，但并没有在“第一等级”和“第二等级”之间划出一条明确的界限。

Everyone in Montpellier spoke the local variation of the langue d’oc, but all official activities took place in French; so the first two estates tended to be bilingual, while the “Third Estate” kept to its own dialect. Dress served as a social code in Montpellier as everywhere else in early modern Europe. Gentlemen wore breeches; laborers wore trousers. Ladies dressed in velvet and silk, depending on the season; common women dressed in wool and cotton, and did not coordinate their clothing strictly with the seasons. All kinds of finery, from shoe buckles to wigs, distinguished the first two estates from the “Third” without drawing a line between the “First Estate” and the “Second.”

类似的区分也体现在人们的饮食内容、时间和方式上。工匠和劳动者进食的时间五花八门，工作之余也时常进食，因为他们一天中工作和娱乐的时间并不固定。石匠们传统上一天要休息八次吃饭，其他行业的工匠通常至少也要休息四次。但身着长袍的资产阶级和贵族们则在同一时间享用三餐：早餐、午餐和晚餐。他们偶尔外出就餐时，会去由高级客栈老板（hôte majeur）经营的正规客栈，一次性付清所有餐费；而工匠们则去由低级客栈老板（hôte mineur）经营的夜总会，按盘付费。夜总会对于前两个阶层来说已经变得陌生，尽管半个世纪前，几乎每个人都会光顾夜总会，一起喝酒——至少我们的作者是这么认为的。他赞许地指出，现代资产阶级和现代贵族并不豪饮，而是饮用精致的葡萄酒，通常是从其他省份进口的。而工匠和劳动者则更喜欢当地的浓烈红葡萄酒， 他们大量饮用，还会漱口以增强酒劲。

Similar distinctions marked off what, when, and how one ate. Artisans and laborers ate at all kinds of hours, on the job and off, because they mixed work and diversion in irregular quantities throughout the day. Masons traditionally knocked off eight times for meals during the workday, and journeymen in other crafts usually managed at least four breaks for food. But the bourgeois and nobles of the robe sat down at the same time for the same three meals: breakfast, dinner, and supper. On the rare occasions when they bought a meal, they went to a proper inn, kept by a hôte majeur, and paid for the whole dinner at once, whereas an artisan went to a cabaret, kept by a hôte mineur, and paid by the plate. The cabaret had become alien territory to the first two estates, although a half century earlier everyone frequented it and got drunk together—or so our author believed. He noted approvingly that the modern bourgeois and the modern nobleman did not drink to inebriation and kept to delicate wines, usually imported from other provinces. Artisans and laborers preferred the local gros rouge, which they swilled in huge quantities, gargling to give it a kick.

蒙彼利埃也根据人们玩的游戏进行划分，我们的作者仔细地记录了这些游戏，并注明了哪些娱乐活动适合前两个等级。既不是气球游戏，也不是只适合农民和劳工玩的暴力混战游戏；也不是会让人结交损友的台球；而是古老的鹦鹉游戏， “最美丽、最高贵、最能娱乐正直之士的游戏”。³³游戏由两队来自“第二等级”的“骑士”组成，他们由“第一等级”的军官指挥，身着饰有金边的红蓝丝绸服饰，头戴羽毛帽。他们跟随一支行进乐队和一根杆子上架着的大型木制鹦鹉，在城里游行数日。然后，他们将鹦鹉固定在城外护城河中一艘船的桅杆顶端，举行射箭比赛。射中鹦鹉的骑士将被拥立为国王。国王府邸前竖起了一座凯旋门，骑士们与他们的女伴在那里彻夜跳舞，之后退到国王的宴会上享用，同时向民众分发了红葡萄酒。然而，资产阶级却很少有机会玩这种骑士与淑女的游戏。事实上，“鹦鹉嬉戏”上次举行还是在两代人之前，也就是1730年太子出生的时候。因此，与工人们每周在护城河里玩的那种原始足球游戏相比，这种游戏带来的乐趣就显得微不足道了。

Montpellier also divided according to the games it played, and our author catalogued them carefully, noting what kind of fun was appropriate for the first two estates. Not ballon, nor the jeu de mail, which involved violent mêlées, suitable only for peasants and laborers; nor billiards, which drew one into bad company; but the ancient game of the perroquet, “the most beautiful, the most noble, and the most capable of amusing honnêtes gens.”³³ It involved two companies of “knights” from the “Second Estate,” who were commanded by officers from the “First Estate” and dressed in costumes of red and blue silk with gold trim and plumed hats. For several days they paraded through town behind a marching band and a large wooden parrot mounted on a pole. Then they attached the parrot to the top of a ship’s mast in a grassy moat outside the city walls and held an archery contest. The knight who felled the parrot was proclaimed king. A triumphal arch was raised in front of his house, and the knights danced there with their ladies all night long, then retired for a feast given by the king, while gros rouge was distributed to the populace. The bourgeois did not get to play at knights and ladies very often, however. In fact, the “Divertissement du Perroquet” had last taken place two generations ago, at the birth of the Dauphin in 1730. So it did not provide much amusement in comparison with the joyful bashings that the workers administered to themselves every week in the primitive versions of football that they played in the moat.

从《描述》中对游戏和庆典的记载来看， “第三等级”才是真正的享乐者。“第一等级”和“第二等级”可以庄严地参加盛大的游行，而工匠和劳动者则围绕着“骑士”（Le Chevalet）——一匹由一位深受民众爱戴的“国王”骑乘的假马——载歌载舞，欢庆不已。这种滑稽模仿宫廷生活的“乞丐歌剧”可以追溯到十六世纪，它能让整个街区的人都跳起舞来。跳舞是“小人物” （petites gens）的一大爱好，也常常让他们有机会戏弄“大人物” （les grands），尤其是在狂欢节、五一节和滑稽戏（charivaris）期间。我们的作者尽职尽责地记录了所有这些娱乐活动，但他并不赞同这些活动，并欣慰地注意到，资产阶级已经把这些娱乐活动留给了下层阶级。 “这类娱乐活动在这座城市已经完全过时，取而代之的是赚钱的欲望。因此，不再有公共庆典，不再有鹦鹉射箭比赛，也不再有各种娱乐活动。即使偶尔有，也只是平民百姓之间的活动。正直的人不会参与。” ³⁴

Judging from the account of games and festivities in the Description, the “Third Estate” had all the fun. The “First” and “Second” Estates could parade about solemnly in processions générales, but the artisans and laborers got to whoop it up around Le Chevalet, a dummy horse mounted by a popular “king,” who set whole neighborhoods dancing in a kind of Beggars’ Opera parody of court life that dated back to the sixteenth century. Dancing was a passion for the “little people” (petites gens), and it often gave them an opportunity to make fun of the big (les grands), especially during carnival time, May Day celebrations, and charivaris. Our author dutifully recorded all these amusements, but he disapproved of them and noted with satisfaction that the bourgeois had left them to the lower orders. “Such amusements have completely gone out of favor in this city and have given way to a concern for making money. Thus no more public fêtes, no more Perroquet archery contests or general merry-making. If any take place from time to time, it is only among the common people. Les honnêtes gens do not take part.”³⁴

除了“第三等级”之外，就连婚宴上也不再有喧闹的场面。在上层阶级中，人们只邀请直系亲属，而不是整个社区。不再有醉酒，不再有餐桌上的争吵，不再有砸碎的家具和碎裂的面包，不再有喧闹的反仪式（闹剧）的入侵，也不再有从狂欢派对或歌舞厅里爆发的粗俗行为。“所有这些过去都会造成如此可怕的混乱，以至于今天如果有人试图恢复这些行为，他就会因扰乱治安而受到惩罚。这种整体的改变产生了非常有益的影响。如今，餐桌上秩序井然，举止得体。在公共庆典中，秩序和得体是必须的；除非国家的性质发生改变，否则我们完全有理由相信，这种秩序和得体将永远持续下去。” ³⁵

Hell-raising had even gone out of wedding feasts, except in the “Third Estate.” In the upper estates, one invited only the immediate family, not the whole neighborhood. There was no more drunkenness, no more brawling at table, no more smashed furniture and broken pates, no invasions from a rowdy counter-ceremony (trouble-fête) or bawdiness exploding from a charivari or a cabaret. “All that used to create such a horrible disorder that if anyone tried to revive it today he would be punished for disturbing the peace. The overall change has had a most salubrious effect. Order and decency now reign during meals. They are required in public festivities; and unless the character of the nation changes, there is every reason to believe that they will last forever.”³⁵

诚然，工匠阶层中仍残留着一些令人不安的拉伯雷主义倾向，我们的作者在杰罗姆的学徒经历中便能辨认出这些倾向。但他欣慰地看到，巫术、咒语和黑色安息日已不再在蒙彼利埃引起人们的狂热。即便还有迷信残存，也仅限于平民百姓，例如暴力游戏和喧闹的节日庆典。上层阶级早已不再参与几代人之前曾风靡一时的那些活动，而是把自己封闭在各自的文化形式之中。“如今，体面的娱乐活动占据主导地位。音乐学院（一个音乐协会）的成立便是其中之一，它使其他娱乐活动（民间娱乐）黯然失色。阅读好书，以及日益兴盛的哲学精神，使我们忘却了前人的一切愚昧无知。” ³⁶如果说有些愚蠢的东西以流行文化的形式幸存下来，那么正直的人们似乎已经把一切都掌控得很好了。

True, some disturbing strains of Rabelaisianism still existed among the artisans, and our author would have recognized them in the story of Jerome’s apprenticeship. But he took heart in the observation that witchcraft, spell casting, and black sabbaths no longer aroused passions in Montpellier. If any superstition remained, it was restricted to the common people, like the violent games and the rowdy festivities. The upper orders had withdrawn from the activities that had engaged the whole population several generations ago, and had shut themselves up within their own cultural forms. “Decent amusements now predominate. The establishment of the Music Academy [a concert society] is one of them, which has pushed the others [popular amusements] into oblivion. The reading of good books, the philosophical spirit that gains ground every day, has made us forget all the inanities of our predecessors.”³⁶ If some inanity survived in the form of popular culture, the honnêtes gens seemed to have everything pretty well in hand.

但如果就此断言城市社会已经分化成不同的文化领域，或者认为我们这位作者的意识，无论多么具有资产阶级色彩，都未受到任何影响，那就大错特错了。他也有自己的担忧，尤其是在跨越文化边界的问题上。

But it would be misleading to imply that urban society had segregated into separate cultural spheres or that our author’s consciousness, however bourgeois, remained unperturbed. He had worries, especially about the problem of boundary crossing.

财富的民主化效应不仅延伸至资产阶级之上，也延伸至其下层。诚然，大多数工匠和劳动者永远无法积累足够的资本去购买比手表更昂贵的物品，但一位技艺精湛的工匠——例如钟表匠，或者与杰罗姆笔下的“资产阶级”相对应的人——却可以过上如同“第二等级”成员般的生活。许多富裕的工匠拥有银质餐具，饮食也与资产阶级不相上下。他们的妻子和女儿像贵妇一样在上午喝咖啡。如今，各阶层的女性都穿着丝袜，人们甚至会将一些店员误认为是上流社会的淑女——除非你特别留意她们精致的发型、略短的裙子以及精心挑选、略带挑逗意味的鞋子。更甚者，男仆有时也会穿上与主人一样华丽的服饰，佩剑招摇过市，与上流人士一同在公共场所招摇过市。在“第三等级”的三个分支内部，等级之间的区别尤其变得模糊不清。“最卑微的工匠与最杰出的艺术家，或者任何从事比他更高阶职业的人，都表现得一样。他们的开销、衣着和住所都难以区分。只有农业劳动者没有离开自己的庄园。” ³⁷

The democratizing effects of wealth extended below as well as above the bourgeoisie. To be sure, most journeymen and laborers could never accumulate enough capital to buy anything more expensive than a watch, but a master artisan—a watchmaker, for instance, or a counterpart of Jerome’s “bourgeois”—could live like a member of the “Second Estate.” Many wealthy artisans owned silver table settings and ate just as well as the bourgeois. Their wives and daughters took coffee in mid-morning, just like gentle-women. Women of all classes now wore silk stockings, and one could mistake some shop girls for ladies of quality—unless one paid special attention to fine points of their coiffure, their slightly shorter skirts, and the studied, provocative elegance of their shoes. Worse still, valets sometimes put on clothes every bit as fine as those of their masters and strutted about, swords at their sides, with the finest of company at the public promenades. Distinctions had especially become eroded within the three branches of the “Third Estate.” “The most vile artisan behaves as the equal of the most eminent artiste or anyone who practices a trade superior to his. They are indistinguishable by their expenditures, their clothes, and their houses. It is only the agricultural laborer who does not leave his estate.”³⁷

但从“第三等级”到“第二等级”的转变最令人不安。例如，外科医生模糊了等级观念。他们传统上属于“第三等级”的上层，因为他们是艺术家，是理发师行会的成员。但其中十位外科医生以“皇家示范教授”的身份，在蒙彼利埃的高级外科学校——圣科姆外科医院——为大批学生授课。他们只穿着简单的黑色长袍，年薪只有500里弗尔；但与其他教授一样，他们也可以享有某种贵族身份。因此，根据一项特别法令，他们享有“杰出居民”的混合身份，只要他们不开店给人理发，就能保有“其等级的荣誉”。 ³⁸那些给人理发的外科医生仍然被归类为艺术家，等级比他们低一个半等级。

But the crossings from the “Third” to the “Second Estate” were most disturbing. Surgeons, for example, caused notions of quality to blur. They traditionally belonged to the upper ranks of the “Third Estate,” for they were artistes, members of the barbers’ guild. But ten of them taught courses as Professeurs-Démonstrateurs Royaux before large crowds of students in Montpellier’s advanced school of surgery, the Saint-Côme des Chirurgiens. They wore only simple black robes and received only 500 livres in salary; but like other professors, they could claim a kind of nobility. So by a special decree, they enjoyed a hybrid status of “notable inhabitant,” which fixed “the honor of their estate” as long as they did not open a shop and shave customers.³⁸ The surgeons who shaved continued to be classified as artistes, an estate and a half below.

教育如同金钱，对社会阶层产生了颠覆性的影响。尽管作者尊重教育，却也感到不安；他强烈谴责教育在“第三等级”的存在。令他震惊的是，慈善兄弟会（Frères de la Charité）开办了两所大型学校，免费为下层阶级的孩子们教授读写。他希望关闭这些学校，并废除巴黎总医院（Hôpital Général）中贫苦儿童的阅读教育。工匠应该被禁止送他们的儿子去中学（collège）。在教育体系的顶端，大学应该严格执行规定，禁止任何从事过“机械行业”的人进入法学院和医学院。只有将学术文化对“第三等级”关闭，^社会才能避免供养大量失业的知识分子，这些人本应在犁地后劳作或在作坊里与父辈一起劳作。

Education, like money, had a disruptive effect on social categories. Although our author respected it, it made him uneasy; and he positively condemned its existence in the “Third Estate.” To his horror, the Frères de la Charité maintained two large schools, where they taught reading and writing free of charge to children of the lower orders. He wanted to close the schools and to abolish instruction in reading among the pauper children in the Hôpital Général as well. Artisans should be forbidden to send their sons to secondary school (collège). And at the top of the educational system, the university should enforce its rule against admitting anyone who had exercised a “mechanical trade” into the faculties of law and medicine.³⁹ Only by keeping learned culture closed to the “Third Estate” could society save itself from having to support a population of unemployed intellectuals, who ought to be walking behind plows or laboring beside their fathers in workshops.

这种论点在十八世纪关于教育的辩论中屡见不鲜。伏尔泰曾多次对此进行抨击。但真正令这位作者感到不安的，并非受过教育的平民会成为经济的负担，而是他们会打破阶级之间的界限。“一个抬轿人、一个街头搬运工、一个卑贱无耻之徒，竟然有权送他的儿子去中学……这有悖于礼仪规范……而那些既无教养又无情的平民子弟，竟然要与上流家庭的子弟混在一起，这会树立坏榜样，并成为不良行为的传染源。” ⁴⁰

This argument was a commonplace in the eighteenth-century debates on education. Voltaire had often hammered away at it. But what really upset our author was not so much that educated common people would become a burden on the economy as that they would disrupt the divisions between estates. “It is repugnant to the rules of propriety that a sedan-chair bearer, a street porter, a vile and abject man, should have the right to send his son to a secondary school ... and that children of the common people, who have neither upbringing nor sentiments, should mix with sons of good families, providing bad examples and a contagious source of bad behavior.”⁴⁰

普通百姓本身就已十分不堪，但一旦他们走出自己的领地，便会对整个社会秩序构成威胁。社会的裂痕就沿着各种阶层、等级、社团、阶级和团体交汇之处延伸。因此，作者建议在一切可能的节点上加强界限。学生们桀骜不驯、叛逆成性，应该被要求穿着特殊的校服，每个学院一套，以免他们混入普通市民之中。公园和林荫大道应该在特定时间仅供特定群体使用。某些行业的工匠应该被要求居住在特定的街区。最重要的是，仆人应该被强制佩戴独特的徽章：

The common people were bad enough in themselves, but they were a menace to the whole social order when they stepped out of their estate. The fault lines of society ran along the seams where estates, orders, corporations, classes, and groups of all kinds were joined. Our author therefore recommended reinforcing boundaries at every possible point. Students, a rowdy lot given to rebellion, should be made to wear special uniforms, one for each faculty, so they could not blend in with normal citizens. Parks and promenades should be reserved for certain groups at certain hours. Artisans in certain trades should be required to live in certain neighborhoods. And above all, servants should be forced to wear distinctive badges on their clothing:

但作者从“第一等级”和“第二等级”之间文化融合的趋势中看到了希望；因为在社会底层看似危险的财富增长，在上层却似乎充满希望。“自从人们开始通过金融和贸易迅速致富以来，第二等级赢得了新的尊重。他们的消费和奢靡生活令第一等级艳羡不已。两者不可避免地融合在一起，如今他们在家庭管理、宴请宾客和穿着打扮方面已无差异。” ⁴²一个新的城市精英阶层正在形成，与普通民众形成对立。这并非意味着更多的资产阶级通过金钱跻身贵族行列，而是他们利用财富发展出一种新的文化风格，而这种风格也吸引了贵族们。

But our author took heart from a countervailing tendency toward cultural fusion across the dividing line between the “First” and “Second” estates; for the increase of wealth that looked so dangerous at the bottom of society seemed promising at the top. “Ever since people have begun to get rich rapidly from finance and trade, the Second Estate has won new respect. Its spending and luxury have made it the envy of the First. Inevitably the two have merged, and today there are no more differences in the way they run their households, give dinner parties, and dress.”⁴² A new urban elite was forming in opposition to the common people. It was not that more bourgeois were buying their way into the nobility but that they were using their wealth to develop a new cultural style, which the nobles also found attractive.

再来探讨一下晚餐的问题，这在法国可是个大事。作者观察到，铺张浪费的风气已经过时，上流社会在餐桌上奉行“得体的节制”和“精打细算”。⁴³ 他指的是，上流社会已经摒弃了路易十四时期盛行的狂欢式用餐方式——当时的宴会往往是长达二十道菜甚至更多的马拉松式盛宴——转而追求当时正在兴起的“资产阶级烹饪”。菜肴的数量减少了，但每道菜都更加精心烹制。佐以合适的葡萄酒和酱汁，菜肴按照一套固定的顺序呈现：浓汤、开胃菜、浓汤小食、主菜、烤肉、甜点、咖啡和咖啡小食。 这听起来或许会让现代中产阶级食客感到有些不知所措，但在十八世纪，这却是极其简朴的。如果晚饭没有客人，这个贵族家庭就只准备一道主菜、烤肉、沙拉和甜点^。44

Consider once more the question of dinner, a matter of consequence in France. Our author observed that sumptuosity had gone out of style, that the best houses practiced a “decent restraint” and a “good economy” at table.⁴³ By that he meant that polite society had abandoned the orgiastic mode of dining that had prevailed under Louis XIV, when banquets were marathon events of twenty or more courses, in favor of what was beginning to emerge as la cuisine bourgeoise. Courses had become less numerous but more carefully prepared. Accompanied by appropriate wines and sauces, they appeared according to a standard choreography: potages, hors d’oeuvre, relevés de potage, entrées, rôti, entremets, dessert, cafe, and pousse-café. That may sound rather daunting to the modern middle-class eater, but it was simplicity itself in the eighteenth century. And when they had no guests for supper, the patrician family would settle for only one entrée, rôti, salade, and dessert.⁴⁴

人们新近对简约的追求并不意味着对奢华的摒弃。恰恰相反，都市精英们在服饰和家具上挥金如土。一位来自“第一等级”或“第二等级”的女士在晨间梳妆时，会使用一套名为“ le déjeuné”（早餐）的专属餐具来享用咖啡。这套餐具包括一个托盘、一个咖啡壶、一个热巧克力壶、一个热水碗、一个热牛奶碗，以及一套刀叉勺——全部都是银质的；之后是茶壶、糖罐和茶杯——全部都是瓷质的；最后，还有一个酒柜，里面摆满了盛放在精美水晶酒瓶中的各种甜酒。但这一切都是为了她私下的享受。奢华不再用于公开炫耀，而是日益局限于家庭生活之中。它以闺房、扶手椅、鼻烟盒等形式呈现，构成了一个充满蓬帕杜式精致美感的奇妙世界。贵族家庭减少了仆人的数量，取消了制服。他们不再渴望在侍从环绕下举行盛大的宴会，而是享受家庭用餐的乐趣。建造新宅时，他们缩小了房间面积，并增设了走廊，以便拥有更大的隐私空间，可以睡觉、更衣和交谈。家族逐渐退出公共领域，更加关注自身。当他们观看塞丹和狄德罗的戏剧，阅读勒萨日和马里沃的小说，欣赏夏尔丹和格勒兹的画作时，他们欣赏的是自身的形象。

The new taste for simplicity did not imply any disapproval of luxury. On the contrary, the urban elite spent vast sums on dress and furniture. While at her morning toilette, a lady from the “First” or “Second Estate” took her coffee from a special service, le déjeuné, which consisted of a platter, a coffee pot, a pot for hot chocolate, a bowl for hot water, a bowl for hot milk, and a set of knives, forks, and spoons—all of it in silver; then a tea pot, a sugar bowl, and cups—all in porcelain; and finally a liqueur cabinet stocked with an assortment of cordials in fine crystal decanters. But all of this was for her private delectation. Instead of being used for public display, luxury became increasingly contained within the domestic sphere of life. It took the form of boudoirs, fauteuils, snuff boxes, a whole world of exquisite objects wrought with Pompadourean prettiness. Patrician families cut back on the number of their servants and eliminated livery. They no longer wished to dine in state, surrounded by retainers, but to enjoy a family meal. When they built new houses, they made the rooms smaller and added hallways, so that they could sleep, dress, and converse with a new degree of privacy. The family withdrew from the public sphere and turned increasingly upon itself. When it attended the plays of Sedaine and Diderot, read the novels of Le Sage and Marivaux, contemplated the paintings of Chardin and Greuze, it admired its own image.

当然，我们不能将路易十五时期的艺术，甚至 资产阶级戏剧，简单地归结为资产阶级的兴起。需要强调的一点——这一点在艺术的社会史中常常被忽视——是贵族阶层正在衰落。他们的财富并未减少，出身也未降低；恰恰相反。但他们的生活方式不再那么高贵。他们不再像十七世纪那样摆出一副严肃的姿态，而是享受着一种新的都市生活方式带来的亲密感，这意味着他们与上层资产阶级有很多共同之处。

Of course, one cannot reduce the art of Louis XV, or even the drame bourgeois, to the rise of the bourgeoisie. The point that needs to be stressed—for it has been overlooked in the social history of art—is that the nobility was descending. It did not decline in wealth or abandon its claims to superior birth; quite the contrary. But it led a less exalted life. It relaxed the severe poses it had struck in the seventeenth century and enjoyed the intimacy of a new urban style, one that meant it had a great deal in common with the upper bourgeoisie.

共同文化风格的形成，体现了对启蒙时代“高雅”文化的某种认同。尽管作者并未发现任何值得一提的本地画家或诗人，但他对蒙彼利埃音乐学院（Académie de Musique）的描述却令他倍感自豪。该学院是一个音乐协会，“几乎囊括了所有上层和下层居民的上流家庭”。 ⁴⁵会员每年缴纳六十里弗尔，即可在市政建造的华丽音乐厅欣赏歌剧、室内乐和交响乐。蒙彼利​​埃还拥有设施完善的剧院和数个共济会会所，不同阶层的人们在此往来。一些思想较为严肃的人则斥巨资购置自然历史标本柜，收集各种昆虫、植物和化石。私人图书馆也蓬勃发展，带动了图书贸易的繁荣，但本地印刷业却并未因此兴盛起来。受过教育的精英阶层，无论是贵族还是资产阶级，都对科学技术表现出浓厚的兴趣。他们为自己的大学及其著名的医学院感到自豪，也为他们的皇家科学院感到自豪，该学院自称与巴黎科学院平起平坐。蒙彼利埃科学院是一个杰出的机构，它出版会议记录，并每周四召开会议，讨论日食、化石、燃素以及从地理到解剖学等各个领域的最新发现。它的成员包括名誉成员——主教、总督、首任副官长和其他显贵，他们主要来自贵族阶层——以及正式成员，后者往往来自专业人士阶层。与其他地方科学院一样，它体现了温和的启蒙文化，这种文化在城市名流的混合精英阶层中扎根。 ⁴⁶

The elaboration of a common cultural style involved a certain commitment to the “high” culture of the age of Enlightenment. Although our author did not find any local painters or poets worthy of note, his civic pride swelled in describing the Académie de Musique, a concert society “composed of almost all the best families in the first and second orders of inhabitants.”⁴⁵ The members paid sixty livres a year to attend operas, chamber music, and symphonies in a handsome concert hall built by the town. Montpellier also had a well-appointed theater and several Masonic lodges, where persons from both estates mixed. The more serious-minded invested huge sums in cabinets of natural history, where they collected all manner of insects, plants, and fossils. Private libraries also flourished, stimulating a boom in the book trade, though not in local printing. The educated elite, both noble and bourgeois, showed great interest in science and technology. They took pride in their university, with its famous faculty of medicine, and in their Société Royale des Sciences, which claimed to be a peer of the Académie des Sciences in Paris. The academy in Montpellier was a distinguished body, which published its proceedings and met every Thursday to discuss eclipses, fossils, phlogiston, and the latest discoveries in everything from geography to anatomy. It included honorary members—the bishop, intendant, first presidents of the Cour des Aides, and other dignitaries, mainly from the nobility—and regular members, who tended to come from the professional classes. Like other provincial academies, it epitomized the moderate, Enlightenment culture that took root in a mixed elite of urban notables.⁴⁶

作者本人显然同情启蒙运动。他鄙视僧侣，认为他们是一群寄生虫，对社会毫无贡献，反而消耗商业所需的资金。耶稣会士被驱逐令他欣喜不已。他赞成宽容对待新教徒和犹太人，对莫利纳主义者和詹森主义者之间的教义之争嗤之以鼻。在他看来，神学不过是徒劳的思辨：与其纠结于理性无法企及的问题，不如致力于改善世人的生活。他的世俗倾向并不意味着他与天主教会决裂，因为他同情那些负担过重、收入微薄的教区神父，并尊重“真正的虔诚”。 ⁴⁷但他的心显然属于启蒙思想家。 “加尔文主义、莫利纳主义和詹森主义之间的争论已经结束了，”他显然很满意地写道。 “取而代之的是，阅读哲学书籍在大多数人，尤其是年轻人中，占据了如此重要的地位，以至于如今自然神论者的数量空前庞大。必须指出的是，他们性情平和，乐于接受各种宗教习俗而不拘泥于任何一种，并且相信践行道德美德足以使人成为一个正直的人。” ⁴⁸

Our author himself clearly sympathized with the Enlightenment. He had no use for monks, a parasitic lot who contributed nothing to society and absorbed funds that were needed in commerce. The expulsion of the Jesuits delighted him. He favored the toleration of Protestants and Jews, and felt nothing but scorn for the doctrinal quarrels between Molinists and Jansenists. Theology struck him as so much vain speculation: better to get on with the business of improving life on earth than to worry about questions beyond the reach of reason. His secular orientation did not mean that he had broken with the Catholic Church, for he expressed sympathy for the overburdened and underpaid parish priests and respect for “true piety.”⁴⁷ But his heart clearly lay with the philosophes. “There are no more disputes over Calvinism, Molinism, and Jansenism,” he wrote with evident satisfaction. “In place of all that, the reading of philosophical books has taken such a hold on most people, especially young people, that one has never seen so many deists as there are today. It must be said that they are peaceful spirits, who are willing to countenance all sorts of religious practices without adhering to any of them and who believe that the exercise of moral virtue is enough to make one an honnête homme.”⁴⁸

“有教养的绅士”（un honnête homme, qui a un nom et un état）的理想形象在《描述》中^多次出现。这一理想源于十七世纪贵族阶层的“绅士”概念，但到了1768年，它已带有资产阶级色彩。它象征着良好的举止、宽容、理性、克制、清晰的思维、公平的处事方式以及健康的自尊。它既非贵族的荣誉准则，也非资产阶级的职业道德，而是体现了一种新的都市风尚，并标志着一种新理想类型——绅士——的出现。在蒙彼利埃，乃至整个法国，都市绅士往往属于资产阶级。这两个词不再像莫里哀时代那样显得荒谬可笑。尽管资产阶级绅士对一边是贵族、一边是工匠感到不安，但他们还是发展出了自己的一套生活方式。他们富裕、饮食充足、衣着得体，被各种雅致的物品环绕，对自己的价值充满信心，并且坚定地秉持着自己的哲学理念，尽情享受着这种新兴的都市生活。“生活在大城市里的人是幸福的，”作者总结道。这个结论并没有考虑到面包救济站、^医院、疯人院和绞刑架的存在。但它却恰如其分地描述了那些在追求幸福的道路上走在前列的人，那些“第二等级”的“正直之士”。

The ideal of the honnête homme, the decent, well-bred citizen (“un honnête homme, qui a un nom et un état”),⁴⁹ reappears at several points in the Description. It had its roots in the aristocratic, seventeenth-century notion of gentility, but by 1768 it had acquired a bourgeois coloring. It suggested good manners, tolerance, reasonableness, restraint, clear thinking, fair dealing, and a healthy self-respect. Neither an aristocratic honor code nor a bourgeois work ethic, it expressed a new urbanity and marked the emergence of a new ideal type: the gentleman. More often than not, in Montpellier if not everywhere in France, the urban gentleman belonged to the bourgeoisie. The two terms no longer looked like a laughable contradiction, as in the era of Molière. Whatever his uneasiness about being flanked by noblemen on one side and artisans on the other, the bourgeois gentleman had developed his own way of life. Rich, well fed, correctly dressed, surrounded by tasteful objects, certain of his usefulness, and firm in his philosophy, he reveled in the new urbanity. “Happy are those who live in great cities,” ⁵⁰ concluded our author. The conclusion did not allow for bread lines, hôpitaux, madhouses, and gibbets. But it suited those who had taken the lead in the pursuit of happiness, the honnêtes gens of the “Second Estate.”

这一思考使我们回到最初的问题：一个身处中产阶级的人是如何解读旧制度下的城市的？《蒙彼利埃描述》实际上提供了三种解读。它将蒙彼利埃描绘成等级森严的游行队伍，然后又将其视为一系列等级的集合，最后将其视为一种生活方式的体现。这三种解读彼此矛盾，互不相容——这正是这份文献的魅力所在，因为透过这些矛盾，人们可以感受到一种正在努力形成的崭新世界观。作者用了数百页的篇幅，层层堆砌描述，因为他迫切地想要理解他所处的世界，却找不到合适的框架来完成这项任务。“等级游行”为他提供了一种传统的语言，通过这种语言，城市展现了其等级制度，但它却严重夸大了某些群体的重要性，而完全忽略了另一些群体。等级划分则运用了另一种传统语言，它虽然恰当地体现了社会的集体性特征，但却只是通过巧妙地操纵各种类别来实现的。对城市文化的描述揭示了人们生活方式的诸多方面，但仔细审视后却发现，它不过是对资产阶级生活方式的一种带有偏见的辩护。当作者论述到此时，他已经摒弃了陈旧的术语，并接近了一种文化意义上的阶级观念——在这种观念中，资产阶级饮食比工厂更能代表城市的新主人。这种观念或许显得有些夸张，但却不容忽视。因为作为一种对现实的认知，它塑造了现实本身，并将这种认知强加于接下来一百年的法国历史之上——这不仅是马克思的世纪，也是巴尔扎克的世纪。

That consideration brings us back to our original question: how did someone situated somewhere within the middle classes read a city under the Old Regime? The Description actually provided three readings. It presented Montpellier as a procession of dignities, then as a set of estates, and finally as the scene of a style of living. Each of the three versions contained contradictions and contradicted the others—hence the fascination of the document, for through its inconsistencies one can sense a fresh vision of the world struggling to emerge. The author went on for hundreds of pages, piling description upon description, because he was driven by a need to make sense of his world and he could not find a framework adequate to the task. The processions générales furnished him with a traditional idiom through which the city represented its hierarchy, but it grossly exaggerated the importance of some groups and completely neglected others. The division into estates made use of another traditional language, which did justice to the corporate character of society, bur only by considerable sleight of hand in the juggling of categories. And the account of urban culture revealed a great deal about how people lived, but upon closer inspection it turned out to be a tendentious apology for the bourgeois way of life. When he reached this point, our author had exploded his archaic terminology and had come close to a cultural conception of class, one in which the cuisine bourgeoise counted for more than the factory in identifying the new masters of the city. That notion may seem extravagant, but it should be taken seriously. For as a perception of reality, it shaped reality itself, and it was to impose its shape on the next hundred years of French history, the century not only of Marx but also of Balzac.

一、古老宅邸。在这座城市里，你不应期望找到众多古老的军事贵族宅邸。蒙彼利埃领主时代，这里曾有一些宏伟的古老宅邸。如今，这些宅邸已不复存在，要么是因为家族成员已经绝嗣，要么是因为他们的后人迁居他处，或是遗失了家族姓氏和族谱。

I. Ancient houses. One should not expect to find a numerous ancient military nobility in this city. In the days of the Seigneurs de Montpellier there were some great old houses. There are none today, either because they died out or because their survivors have moved away or lost their family names and genealogies.

来自蒙彼利埃老房子的绅士有Baschi du Caila、de Roquefeuil、de Montcalm、de Saint-Véran、de la Croix de Candilhargues（卡斯特里家族的一个分支）、Brignac de Montarnaud、Lavergne de Montbasin、Saint-Julien。没有其他人的古老贵族气质得到了充分的证明。

The gentlemen from old Montpellier houses are the Baschi du Caila, de Roquefeuil, de Montcalm, de Saint-Véran, de la Croix de Candilhargues (a branch of the house of Castries), Brignac de Montarnaud, Lavergne de Montbasin, Saint-Julien. There are no others whose ancient nobility has been firmly proven.

观察。我刚才提到的蒙彼利埃缺乏古老贵族的原因，解释了为什么这座城市里找不到一位圣灵骑士团的骑士或一位里昂教士，尽管他们在许多小镇都有。这里只有三个家族曾为马耳他骑士团输送骑士：博科德家族、蒙卡尔姆家族和邦家族。

Observations. What I have just said about the lack of an ancient nobility in Montpellier accounts for the fact that one cannot find in this city a single knight of the Order of Saint-Esprit nor a canon of Lyon, even though they exist in a great many small towns. We have only three families here who have supplied knights of Malta: the Bocaud, Montcalm, and Bon.

至于军队方面，勒卡伊拉、拉沙伊兹和蒙卡尔姆家族共出过四位国王陆军中将。其他家族也出过一些准将、许多上尉、中校和圣路易骑士，但没有出过上校。人们指责此地人厌倦军旅生涯，缺乏奉献精神，过早退役。必须承认，一般来说，一旦获得圣路易十字勋章，便会开始渴望退休。这种倾向的例子不胜枚举，令人无法否认。

As for the armed services, the houses of le Caila, la Chaize, and Montcalm have provided four lieutenants généraux des armées du roi. Others have produced some brigadiers, a great many captains, lieutenant colonels, and knights of Saint Louis, but not colonels. People from here are accused of becoming tired of service in the army, of lacking commitment to it, and of leaving it at an early age. It must be said that in general, once one has been decorated with the cross [of Saint Louis], one begins to pine for retirement. There are far too many examples of this tendency for one to dare deny it.

自从人们通过金融和贸易迅速致富以来，第二等级赢得了新的尊重。他们的消费和奢华令第一等级艳羡不已。不可避免地，两个等级融合在了一起，如今他们在家庭管理、宴会举办和着装方面已无任何差异。

Ever since people have begun to get rich rapidly from finance and trade, the Second Estate has won new respect. Its spending and luxury has made it the envy of the First. Inevitably the two have merged, and today there are no more differences in the way they run their households, give dinner parties, and dress.

在第三等级的各个阶层之间，也看不出任何差异。最卑微的工匠与最杰出的艺术家，甚至任何从事比他更高阶职业的人，都表现得一样。他们的开销、衣着和住所都难以区分。只有农业劳动者没有离开自己的领地，要么是因为他们的职业不允许，要么是因为他们仍然依附于其他拥有土地并雇佣他们耕作的居民，要么是因为他们的收入仅够勉强维持自己和家人的生计。

One cannot see any more differences either among the branches of the Third [Estate]. The most vile artisan behaves as the equal of the most eminent artiste or anyone who practices a trade superior to his. They are indistinguishable by their expenditures, their clothes, and their houses. It is only the agricultural laborer who does not leave his estate, either because his occupations do not permit it, or because he remains subordinate to the other inhabitants, who own land and hire him to work it, or finally because he earns only just enough to keep himself and his family alive.

然而，如有公共工程需要开展、士兵需要安置、或在紧急情况下需要强制劳动，那么所有负担都将落在他们身上。诚然，这是他们命运的安排。但若能补偿他们的艰辛，鼓励他们，并在不让他们意识到我们多么需要他们的情况下，给予他们一些特殊优待，甚至是税收减免，这无疑是件好事。这些措施既能减轻他们的负担，又能激励他们更好地履行职责。

However, if there are public works to be done, soldiers to be lodged, or forced labor to be performed in an emergency, those are the ones on whom the full burden falls. To be sure, such is the lot of their estate. But it would be a good thing to compensate them for their hardship, to encourage them, and without letting them become aware of how much we need them to grant them some special marks of favor, even tax exemptions, which in easing their lot would incite them to fulfill their duties better.

让别人背着自己行走是一种极大的弊端。这违背自然规律，没有什么比看到一个教士、主教、军官、地方官员，或者任何一个想装腔作势的纨绔子弟把自己关在箱子里，让别人背着自己，在水、泥、冰、雪中艰难跋涉，稍有不慎就会被压死更荒谬的了。这种艰苦的行当占据了大量山民的劳动时间，他们本应体格健壮，完全可以把精力用在耕种土地上，而不是背着那些完全可以行走的人。他们沉溺于酒精，一段时间后便瘫痪在床，最终死在贫民窟里。如果传教士们能谴责这种弊端，而不是空谈形而上学的教义，那该多好啊！如果教会人士将携带者和被携带者逐出教会，而不是将根本不存在的女巫和最害怕被逐出教会的毛毛虫逐出教会，那么这种荒谬的做法就会停止，社会也会因此变得更好。

The practice of having oneself carried by other men is a great abuse. It contradicts nature, and nothing seems more ridiculous than to see a canon, a bishop, a military officer, a magistrate, or any fop who wants to cut a figure shut himself up in a box and have himself carried on the shoulders of other men, who must stagger through water, mud, ice, and snow, in constant danger of being crushed if they make a false step. This harsh trade occupies a prodigious quantity of mountain peasants, who are sturdy by nature and certainly could employ their strength more usefully by cultivating the earth rather than by carrying around other men who are perfectly capable of walking. They give themselves over to drink, become paralytic after a certain time, and finish by dying in the poorhouse. If preachers spoke out against this abuse instead of declaiming about metaphysical points of doctrine; if the churchmen excommunicated the carriers and the carried instead of excommunicating witches, who don’t exist, and caterpillars, who fear nothing less than excommunication, then this ridiculous practice would stop and society would be much the better for it.

最后，应当颁布法令，要求所有仆人，无论男女，都必须在衣服上佩戴清晰可见的徽章。因为没有什么比看到厨师或贴身男仆穿着饰有花边或蕾丝的服装，佩剑，混入上流人士的行列中更不得体了；也没有什么比看到女仆打扮得像她的女主人一样精致更不得体了；更没有什么比看到任何类型的家仆都像绅士淑女一样盛装打扮更不得体了。这一切都令人作呕。仆人的身份是奴役，是服从主人命令。他们不被视为自由人，不属于公民的社会群体。因此，应当禁止他们与公民混杂；如果必须混杂，则应当能够通过表明其身份的徽章来识别他们，以免将他们与其他人混淆。

Finally, there should be an ordinance requiring every servant, male or female, to wear a clearly visible badge on his clothes. For nothing is more impertinent than to see a cook or a valet don an outfit trimmed with braid or lace, strap on a sword, and insinuate himself amongst the finest company in promenades; or to see a chambermaid as artfully dressed as her mistress; or to find domestic servants of any kind decked out like gentle people. All that is revolting. The estate of servants is one of servitude, of obedience to the orders of their masters. They are not deemed to be free, to form part of the social body with the citizens. Therefore they should be forbidden to mix with the citizenry; and if any such mixing must take place, one should be able to pick them out by a badge indicating their estate and making it impossible to confuse them with everyone else.

诚然，德·埃梅里并未将他的调查标榜为文化社会学研究，也未质疑其认识论基础。他只是按部就班地进行考察。在1748年至1753年的五年间，他撰写了五百份关于作家的报告，这些报告如今仍未发表于法国国家图书馆。他为何要承担这项任务，我们不得而知。这些报告以“作家史”（Historique des auteurs）为题，汇编成三册厚重的档案，却没有任何引言、解释或文本证据来说明其用途。德·埃梅里于1748年6月上任，或许他只是想充实自己的档案，以便更好地管理他新划定的行政区域。但在那最初的五年里，他需要审查一些非同寻常的书籍：《法的精神》、 《百科全书》、卢梭的《论科学与艺术》、狄德罗的《论盲人》、布丰的《自然史》、杜桑的《风俗》，以及普拉德神父那篇引发争议的论文。整个启蒙运动似乎一下子涌现出大量印刷品。与此同时，马绍·达努维尔的税制改革、詹森派与耶稣会的争论、关于忏悔信的争议、王室与高等法院之间的斗争，以及法国在亚琛和约中遭受屈辱后兴起的“自由主义” 精神，都加剧了当时的意识形态氛围。无论君主制自诩多么绝对，它都必须顾及公众舆论以及那些用笔杆子左右舆论的人的意见。

To be sure, d‘Hémery did not present his survey as a sociology of culture and did not question its epistemological basis. He merely went about his work, inspecting. In five years, from 1748 to 1753, he wrote five hundred reports on authors, which now lie unpublished in the Bibliothèque Nationale. Just why he undertook such a task is difficult to say. The reports appear in three huge registers under the title “Historique des auteurs,” without any introduction, explanation, or textual evidence about the way they were used. D’Hémery, who took up his office in June, 1748, may simply have wanted to build up his files so that he could do an effective job of policing his new administrative territory. But he had some extraordinary books to police during those first five years: L‘Esprit des lois, the Encyclopédie, Rousseau’s Discours sur les sciences et les arts, Diderot’s Lettre sur les aveugles, Buffon’s Histoire naturelle, Toussaint’s Les Moeurs, and the scandalous thesis by the abbé de Prades. The whole Enlightenment seemed to burst out all at once in print. And at the same time, the tax reforms of Machault d’Arnouville, the Jansenist-Jesuit controversy, the agitation over the billets de confession, the struggle between the crown and the parlements, and the frondeur spirit following France’s humiliation in the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle produced a general heating up of the ideological atmosphere. However absolute the monarchy claimed to be, it had to take account of public opinion and of the men who directed it with their pens.

新任书业监察员显然面临着艰巨的任务，但他有条不紊地开展工作。他从各种渠道搜集资料：期刊、间谍、礼宾员、咖啡馆闲聊，以及在巴士底狱的审讯记录。然后，他从这些档案中挑选信息，誊写到带有印刷标题的标准表格上，按字母顺序归档，并根据需要及时更新。这一程序比以往任何做法都更加彻底，但从后来的意识形态警察工作史来看，却显得十分原始。德·埃梅里并没有将数据输入电脑程序，而是讲述一些轶事。例如，在关于克雷比永之子（Crébillon fils）的报告中，他写道：“他的父亲说，‘我一生中只有两件事让我后悔，塞米拉米斯和我的儿子。’” “哦，别担心，”儿子回答说，“没人会把这两件事都归咎于你。”德·埃梅里不仅以一种不科学的幽默感来搜集信息，他还运用了文学鉴赏力。他观察到，拉·巴尔的散文还算过得去，但写不出诗。而罗贝·德·博韦塞则恰恰相反：“他的诗歌里有些天赋，但他的文笔生硬，品味低下。”德·埃梅里恐怕不会受到第二局或联邦调查局的欢迎。

The new inspector of the book trade clearly had his work cut out for him, and he went about it systematically. He built up dossiers from all kinds of sources: journals, spies, concièrges, café gossips, and interrogations in the Bastille. Then he selected information from the dossiers and transcribed it on standard forms with printed headings, which he filed in alphabetical order and brought up to date as the occasion arose. The procedure was more thorough than anything done before, but it looks primitive in the light of the subsequent history of ideological police work. Instead of adapting data to a computerized program, d‘Hémery recounted anecdotes. In the report on Crébillon fils, for example, he noted: “His father said, ‘There are only two things that I regret having done, Semiramis and my son.’ ‘Oh, don’t worry,’ the son replied. ’No one attributes either of them to you.”’ Not only did d’Hémery go about information retrieval with an unscientific sense of humor, he also exercised literary judgment. La Barre wrote passable prose but could not manage verse, he observed. And Robbé de Beauveset sinned in the opposite way: “There is some genius in his poetry, but he writes harshly and has very little taste.” D’Hémery would not have gone down well with the Deuxième Bureau or the F.B.I.

因此，将德·埃梅里的报告视为现代人口普查中那种确凿的数据是错误的；但因其主观性过强而将其弃之不顾则更为错误。德·埃梅里对十八世纪文坛的了解远超任何历史学家所能企及。他的报告提供了已知最早的关于作家群体的调查，而且正值文学史的关键时期。此外，这些报告还可以与大量的传记和书目资料进行比对。一旦梳理完所有这些资料并整理出统计数据，人们便能首次清晰地了解早期现代欧洲的文坛世界。

It would be a mistake, therefore, to treat d‘Hémery’s reports as hard data of the kind one can find in a modern census; but it would be a greater mistake to dismiss them for excessive subjectivity. D’Hémery had a more intimate knowledge of the eighteenth-century world of letters than any historian can hope to acquire. His reports provide the earliest known survey of writers as a social group, and they do so at a critical moment of literary history. Moreover, they can be checked against a vast array of biographical and bibliographical sources. Once one has worked through all this material and compiled the statistics, one can enjoy the first clear view of the republic of letters in early modern Europe.

德埃梅里实际上报告了501人，但其中67人从未发表过任何作品，或者只在《 水星报》上发表过寥寥数语。因此，报告涵盖了434位活跃的作家。在这434人中，359人可以确定出生日期，312人可以确定出生地，333人可以确定社会职业地位。因此，这项调查的统计基础似乎足够广泛，可以支持一些可靠的结论。

D’Hémery actually reported on 501 persons, but 67 of them never published anything, or anything beyond a few lines in the Mercure. So the reports cover 434 active writers. Of them, the date of birth can be established in 359 cases, the place of birth in 312, and the socio-occupational position in 333. The statistical basis of the survey therefore seems wide enough to support some firm conclusions.

但德·埃梅里最初的调查范围究竟有多广呢？唯一可以与他的调查进行比较的资料是《法国文学年鉴》（ La France littéraire），这是一本声称列出了1756年所有在世法国作家的文学年鉴。由于名单上列出了1187位作家，德·埃梅里似乎涵盖了当时法国作家总数的三分之一左右。但究竟是哪三分之一呢？这个问题引出了一个难题：如何定义“作家”。德·埃梅里使用了“auteur”（作者）一词，却没有对其进行解释；而《法国文学年鉴》声称收录了所有出版过书籍的人。但它所列出的“书籍”主要是一些昙花一现的作品——乡村医生的布道、地方显贵的演说、小镇医生的医学小册子，实际上，只要有人想提及，它都会被收录——因为年鉴的编纂者表示，他们会将公众提供的任何书籍和作者的名字都列入自己的名单。因此，《文学法国》杂志更青睐地方小文人墨客。德·埃梅里接触的作家范围广泛，但他几乎完全局限于巴黎。由此可以合理推断，他的档案涵盖了活跃文坛的大部分人，而从中得出的统计数据^也相当准确地反映了启蒙运动之都的文学生活。

But how widely had d‘Hémery cast his net in the first place? The only source against which to compare his survey is La France littéraire, a literary almanac that purported to list every living French author in 1756. As the list ran to 1,187 names, it seems likely that d’Hémery covered about a third of the total population of French writers. But which third? That question raises the problem of defining a writer. D’Hémery used the term “auteur” without explaining it, and La France littéraire claimed to include everyone who had ever published a book. But the “books” it listed were mainly ephemeral works—sermons by village cures, orations by provincial dignitaries, medical pamphlets by small-town doctors, in fact anything that anyone wanted mentioned—for the authors of the almanac had offered to include in their own lists the names of any books and authors that the general public could supply. As a result, La France littéraire favored the minor provincial literati. D’Hémery dealt with a broad range of writers, but he restricted himself almost entirely to Paris. It seems reasonable to conclude that his files covered a major proportion of the active literary population and that the statistics drawn from them give a fairly accurate picture of literary life in the capital of the Enlightenment.²

该群体的人口结构如图1所示。1750年，这些作家的年龄从93岁（丰特奈尔）到16岁（吕尔耶尔）不等，但大多数人相对年轻。38岁的卢梭恰好代表了年龄的中位数。百科全书派的核心圈子主要由30多岁的男性组成，从37岁的狄德罗和33岁的达朗贝尔开始。因此，柱状图中的凸起部分暗示着某种类似于一代文学家的群体。除了像孟德斯鸠和伏尔泰这样一只脚踏在路易十四统治下的法国的例外之外，这些启蒙思想家 都属于在17世纪中叶达到鼎盛时期的群体^。³

The demographic structure of the group shows up in figure 1. In 1750, the writers ranged in age from ninety-three (Fontenelle) to sixteen (Rulhière), but most of them were relatively young. Rousseau, at thirty-eight, represented the median age exactly. The inner circle of Encyclopedists was composed mainly of men in their thirties, beginning with Diderot, thirty-seven, and d’Alembert, thirty-three. Thus the bulge in the bar graph suggests something akin to a literary generation. With exceptions like Montesquieu and Voltaire, who had one foot in the France of Louis XIV, the philosophes belonged to cohorts that reached their prime at mid-century.³

图2所示的作家地理分布 呈现出一种熟悉的模式。除了罗讷河三角洲和加龙河周边零星分布的城市地区外，南部地区大多是后发区。四分之三的作家出生于著名的圣马洛-日内瓦线以北的法国北部和东北部，那里识字率和学校密度最高。巴黎贡献了三分之一（113位）的作家。因此，这张地图并不支持文化史上的另一个陈词滥调——即巴黎一直以来都通过吸纳外省人才而主宰全国。1750年的巴黎，本土作家的数量比人们预想的要多。 ⁴

The geographical origins of the writers, which are mapped on figure 2, fall into a familiar pattern. The south looks backward, except in urban areas scattered around the Rhone delta and the Garonne. Three-quarters of the writers were born above the celebrated Saint Malo-Geneva line, in northern and northeastern France, where literacy and schools were densest. Paris supplied a third (113) of the writers. So the map does not bear out another cliché of cultural history—namely, that Paris has always dominated the country by soaking up talent from the provinces. There were more home-grown authors than one might expect in the Paris of 1750.⁴

任何试图分析两个世纪前一群法国人的社会构成的尝试，都可能因数据错误和分类体系模糊不清而失败。但德·埃梅里笔下四分之三的作家可以根据图3中的类别被明确识别和分类。剩余的四分之一“身份不明”的作家中包含大量“无政府状态者”（ gens sans état） ——他们像狄德罗和卢梭那样，多年来辗转于各种工作之间。尽管关于他们中的许多人都有相当多的信息，但他们却难以被分类和进行统计分析。然而，如果我们考虑到他们在旧制度下那难以捉摸的流动人口中的存在，那么图3就可以 作为巴黎文坛社会面貌的一个可靠指标。

Any attempt to analyze the social composition of a group of Frenchmen who lived two centuries ago is liable to flounder in faulty data and ambiguous classification schemes. But three-quarters of d’Hémery’s writers can be identified and classified unambiguously according to the categories in figure 3. The remaining quarter of “unidentified” writers contains a large number of gens sans état—hacks who drifted from job to job, as Diderot and Rousseau did for many years. Although a good deal of information exists about many of them, they defy classification and statistical analysis. But if one makes allowances for their existence in the unfathomable floating population of the Old Regime, one can take figure 3 as a reliable indication of the social dimensions to the republic of letters in Paris.

在德·埃梅里的档案中，特权阶层的地位远比他们在普通民众中的地位重要得多。在已确认身份的作家中，有17%是贵族。尽管其中不乏像孟德斯鸠这样的严肃作家，但他们大多是业余绅士，创作一些随笔诗或轻松喜剧。例如，保尔米侯爵就以秘书尼古拉斯·弗罗马热的笔名发表中篇小说，他们通常不愿与这类轻松的作品扯上关系。他们也不为市场而写作。德·埃梅里指出，圣福瓦伯爵“以绅士作家的身份创作，从不收取任何稿费”。在报告中，这些贵族作家通常被描绘成权力掮客，将赞助权输送给地位较低的 文人。

The privileged orders occupied a far more important place in d‘Hémery’s files than they did within the population at large. Seventeen percent of the identified authors were noblemen. Although they included some serious writers, like Montesquieu, they tended to be gentleman amateurs and to write incidental verse or light comedies. As in the case of the marquis de Paulmy, who published novelettes under the name of his secretary, Nicolas Fromaget, they did not often want to be identified with such frothy stuff. Nor did they write for the marketplace. D’Hémery noted that the comte de Saint-Foix “works as a gentleman author and never takes any money for his plays.” The aristocratic writers generally appear in the reports as power brokers, channeling patronage toward more lowly littérateurs.

在这些报告中，写作对神职人员而言往往是次要活动，而且人数众多：在可辨认的作者中，有12%是神职人员。只有四位属于高级神职人员，而修道院院长则有数十位，其中包括孔狄亚克、马布利、雷纳尔，以及《百科全书》的三位作者：伊冯、佩斯特雷和德普拉德。少数神父，如博韦和米歇尔·德雅尔丹，继续以博絮埃的风格撰写宫廷布道词和葬礼悼词。但总的来说，宫廷神职人员的形象已经让位于启蒙运动时期无处不在的修道院院长。

Writing also tended to be a secondary activity for the clergymen in the reports, and there were a great many of them: 12 percent of the authors who can be identified. Only four belonged to the upper clergy in contrast to dozens of abbés, among them Condillac, Mably, Raynal, and the threesome of the Encyclopédie, Yvon, Pestré, and de Prades. A few priests, like J.-B.-C.-M. de Beauvais and Michel Desjardins, continued to produce court sermons and funeral eulogies in the style of Bossuet. But in general the courtier-cleric had given way to the omnipresent abbé of the Enlightenment.

尽管70%的作家出身于第三等级，但其中鲜少有人能被狭义地定义为“资产阶级”——即靠贸易和工业为生的资本家。他们当中只有一位商人，J·H·乌塞尔，是印刷商的儿子，没有一位是制造商。他们的父亲中有11位商人，其中156位可以被确认身份。然而，文学的繁荣更多地发生在专业人士和皇家行政机构，而非商业领域。10%的作家是医生或律师；9%担任低级行政职务；如果将高等法院和下级法院的法官也算在内，则有16%的作家隶属于国家机关。作家父亲中人数最多的群体是下级行政官员，共有22位；其次是律师，共有19位。仔细研究这些统计数据并阅读数百篇传记之后，人们会觉得，许多文学家的背后都有一位雄心勃勃、精明干练的皇家官僚。法国文学对书记员、法律助理以及修道院院长都怀有不可估量的感激之情。普雷沃正是这类人的典型代表。他的父亲是一位律师，后来在埃斯丹的法院担任官员，而他本人则多次担任修道院院长。“他几乎加入过所有宗教团体，”德·埃梅里曾这样评价道。

Although 70 percent of the writers came from the third estate, few of them can be considered “bourgeois” in the narrow sense of the term—that is, capitalists living from trade and industry. They included only one merchant, J. H. Oursel, the son of a printer, and no manufacturers. There was a certain business element—eleven merchants—among their fathers, 156 of whom can be identified. But literature flourished less in the marketplace than in the professions and the royal administration. Ten percent of the writers were doctors or lawyers; 9 percent held minor administrative offices; and 16 percent belonged to the apparatus of the state, if magistrates from the parlements and lower courts are included in the count. The largest group of fathers, twenty-two, came from the lower administration; the next largest, nineteen, were lawyers. After sifting through the statistics and reading hundreds of biographical sketches, one gets the impression that behind many literary careers stood an ambitious, sharp-witted, royal bureaucrat. French literature owes an incalculable debt to the commis and the law clerk as well as to the abbé. Prévost epitomized this species. The son of a lawyer turned court official in the bailliage of Hesdin, he was an abbé many times over. “He has been a member of every religious order,” d’Hémery observed.

然而，在谋生方面，数量最多的作家群体依赖于所谓的“脑力劳动”。其中36%的人从事记者、家庭教师、图书管理员、秘书和演员等工作，或者依靠庇护人安排的闲职收入。这便是文坛的命脉所在；由于这些职位是由赞助人分配的，作家们很清楚自己的饭碗在哪一边。据德·埃梅里所述，弗朗索瓦-奥古斯丁·帕拉迪·德·蒙克里夫对此深有体会：

When it came to earning a living, however, the largest group of writers depended upon what may be called the intellectual trades. Thirty-six percent of them worked as journalists, tutors, librarians, secretaries, and actors, or else relied on the income from a sinecure procured for them by a protector. This was the bread-and-butter element in the republic of letters; and as it was dispensed by patronage, the writers knew which side their bread was buttered on. According to d’Hémery, François-Augustin Paradis de Moncrif certainly did:

在社会底层，文学群体中竟有相当一部分人（6%）是店主、工匠和小职员。他们既包括技艺精湛的工匠——印刷工、雕刻师、珐琅彩绘师——也包括相对卑微的工人——马具匠、装订工、门卫和两个仆役。德·埃梅里指出，其中一位仆役维奥莱·德·瓦尼翁在一位贴身男仆和一位杂货商的帮助下出版了他的《失意作家》 。据说，查尔斯-西蒙·法瓦尔的诗歌天赋源于聆听父亲在自家糕点店揉面时即兴创作的歌曲。⁵^因此，下层阶级在旧制度的文学生活中扮演着一定的角色——如果考虑到作家们的父亲，这个角色就相当重要了。他们中有19%属于小阶层；他们大多是普通的工匠——鞋匠、面包师和裁缝。因此，他们的儿子们——有的成为律师，有的成为教师，有的成为记者——的职业生涯表明，对于那些能写字的年轻人来说，社会晋升的绝佳机会有时会向他们敞开。然而，文学界仍然对一个社会群体——农民——关闭。当然，德·埃梅里并没有在乡村寻找作家，但他也没有在那些从外省来到巴黎的作家中发现丝毫农民的影子。尽管有雷斯蒂夫·德·拉·布雷顿的身影，但法国的文学界似乎主要还是以城市为主。

At a lower level, the literary population contained a surprising proportion, 6 percent, of shopkeepers, artisans, and minor employees. They included both master craftsmen—a printer, an engraver, a painter-enameler—and relatively humble workers—a harness maker, a binder, a gatekeeper, and two lackeys. D‘Hémery noted that one of the lackeys, Viollet de Wagnon, published his L’Auteur laquais with the help of a valet and a grocer. Charles-Simon Favart reputedly acquired his facility with verse by listening to his father improvise songs while kneading dough in the family’s pastry shop.⁵ Thus the lower classes played some part in the literary life of the Old Regime—a substantial part, if one considers the writers’ fathers. Nineteen percent of them belonged to the petites gens; they were ordinary artisans for the most part—cobblers, bakers, and tailors. So the careers of their sons, who became lawyers, teachers, and journalists, showed that exceptional possibilities of social advancement sometimes opened up for young men who could wield a pen. The literary world remained closed, however, to one social group: the peasantry. Of course, d’Hémery did not look for writers in the countryside, but he did not find the slightest peasant element in the background of writers who came to Paris from the provinces. Restif de la Bretonne notwithstanding, literary France seems to have been primarily urban.

当时女性作家群体也以男性为主。女性主持着著名的沙龙，因此在警方档案中也占有一席之地。但只有十六位女性出版过作品。像其中最著名的格拉菲尼夫人一样，这些女作家往往是在丧偶或与丈夫分居后才开始写作的。她们大多家境殷实。其中两位是教师。一位是夏洛特·布雷特，人称“柠檬水缪斯”，经营着一家软饮料店；还有一位是交际花。关于这位交际花圣法利埃小姐的记录读起来就像一部小说的梗概。她离开在巴黎做马贩的父亲后，成为一位富裕金融家的女佣。这家人的儿子引诱并绑架了她，却被父亲逮捕。父亲强迫他娶了一位更合适的女子，圣法利埃小姐从此流落街头。当警察找到她时，她已经成了情妇，与女演员们交往甚密，并且即将出版她的第一本书《Le Portefeuille rendu》，献给蓬帕杜夫人。

It was also mainly male. Women presided over the famous salons and therefore won a few places in the police files. But only sixteen of them ever published anything. Like Mme de Graffigny, the most famous of their number, the female authors often turned to writing after being widowed or separated from their husbands. Most of them were independently wealthy. Two were teachers. One, Charlotte Bourette, la muse limonadière, ran a soft-drink shop; and one was a courtesan. The report on the courtesan, Mlle de Saint Phalier, reads like the precis of a novel. After leaving her father, a horse dealer in Paris, she became a chambermaid in the house of a wealthy financier. The son of the house seduced and abducted her, only to be arrested by the father, who then forced him to marry a more suitable woman, leaving Mlle de Saint Phalier in the streets. By the time the police ran across her, she had become a kept woman, consorted with actresses, and was about to publish her first book, Le Portefeuille rendu, dedicated to Mme de Pompadour.

当德埃梅里在“故事”栏目下填写条目时，他讲述了更多悲惨的故事。许多人的职业生涯都遵循着从阁楼到街头的轨迹，甚至还曾一度身陷囹圄。L.-J.-C. 苏拉斯·达兰瓦尔的经历便是最好的例证。他为意大利喜剧院创作的闹剧无法维持生计，于是他开始撰写政治诽谤文章和从事秘密新闻工作，结果却直接被送进了巴士底狱。获释后，他的债务越积越多。最终，他甚至连文具店的纸都买不起了，因为店主为了追讨他欠下的六十里弗尔的账款，切断了他从意大利喜剧院票房获得的微薄收入。达兰瓦尔开始流落街头，最终健康状况每况愈下。德埃梅里讲述了他故事的其余部分：

D‘Hémery had sadder stories to tell when he filled in the entries under the rubric histoire, for many careers followed trajectories that led from the garret to the gutter, with stopovers in the Bastille. L.-J. -C. Soulas d’Allainval illustrates the pattern. Unable to support himself by the farces he wrote for the Comédie Italienne, he took up political libelles and clandestine journalism, which brought him straight to the Bastille. After his release, he sank deeper into debt. Ultimately, he was unable even to get paper from his stationer, who cut off the pittance he received from the box office of the Comédie Italienne in order to collect an unpaid bill of sixty livres. D‘Allainval began to sleep à la belle étoile (in the streets). His health gave out. D’Hémery recounted the rest:

德埃梅里对弗朗索瓦-安托万·舍夫里耶则鲜有同情，称他“是个糟糕的人，一个厚颜无耻的骗子，言辞犀利，爱挑剔，而且自命不凡得令人难以忍受”。舍夫里耶在律师、士兵、剧作家和诗人等职业上都以失败告终，之后便转而从事小册子写作、地下新闻和间谍活动。警方曾持密令追捕他， 足迹遍及德国和低地国家；然而，就在他们即将抓获他之际，他却在鹿特丹潦倒而死。警方最终抓获了埃马纽埃尔-让·德·拉科斯特，这位五十九岁的被剥夺僧袍的僧侣被判处鞭刑和终身苦役。他曾带着一个年轻女孩私奔到列日，靠兜售反法小册子、伪造彩票以及——似乎还有那个女孩——来维持生计。这些人物属于格拉布街，格拉布街是文坛的重要组成部分。诚然，大多数作家不像达兰瓦尔、舍夫里耶和拉科斯特那样堕落；但许多人都有着格拉布街人物共同的遭遇：被关进巴士底狱。在调查的作家中，有45位（占10%）至少被关进过一次国家监狱，通常是巴士底狱。如果说1789年7月14日的巴士底狱几乎空无一人，那么对于那些在法国大革命前将其打造为激进宣传中心象征的人来说，它却意义非凡^。

D‘Hémery expressed less sympathy for François-Antoine Chevrier, “a bad subject, an audacious liar, trenchant, critical, and unbearably pretentious.” After failing as a lawyer, soldier, playwright, and poet, Chevrier turned to pamphleteering, underground journalism, and espionage. The police chased him with a lettre de cachet through Germany and the Low Countries; but just as they were closing in on him, he died down and out in Rotterdam. The police got their man in the case of Emmanuel-Jean de La Coste, a fifty-nine-year-old defrocked monk, who was condemned to a whipping and the galleys for the rest of his life. He had run off to Liege with a young girl and had supported himself by peddling anti-French pamphlets, counterfeit lottery tickets, and, it seems, the girl herself. These characters belonged to Grub Street, an important ingredient in the republic of letters. To be sure, most writers did not sink so low as d’Allainval, Chevrier, and La Coste; but many shared an experience that marked the men of Grub Street: embastillement. Forty-five writers, 10 percent of those in the survey, were locked up at least once in a state prison, usually the Bastille. If the Bastille was almost empty on July 14, 1789, it was full of meaning for the men who made it into the central symbol of radical propaganda before the French Revolution.⁶

当然，1750年谁也无法预料到1789年会发生什么。17世纪中叶，文坛或许躁动不安，但并不激进。他们中的大多数人都在努力争取在《水星报》上发表文章、进入法兰西喜剧院或在学院获得一席之地。他们的谋生手段五花八门，有的靠俸禄，有的靠官职，有的靠职业，还有许多人从事文坛人士可以从事的工作：新闻工作、教学、秘书，以及对幸运儿而言的闲职。他们来自社会各阶层，唯独不包括农民；他们来自王国的各个角落，唯独不包括南方的落后地区。其中包括少数女性和大量才华横溢的年轻人，他们是小官员和工匠的儿子，他们获得了奖学金，发表了诗歌，最终成为了律师和公务员——或者，在少数情况下，成为了全职作家，过着像狄德罗一样的生活， 靠书商的薪水生活。

Of course, no one could foresee 1789 in 1750. At mid-century the literary population may have been restive, but it was not revolutionary. Most of its members were struggling to get a review in the Mercure, an entrée in the Comédie française, or a seat in the Academy. They supported themselves in dozens of ways, some from rentes, some from offices, some from professions, and a great many from the jobs that were open to men of the pen: journalism, teaching, secretaryships, and, for the fortunate, sinecures. They came from all sectors of society except the peasantry and from all corners of the kingdom except the backward areas of the south. They included a small number of women and a large number of bright young men, sons of minor officials and artisans, who won scholarships, published poems, and ended up as lawyers and civil servants—or, in a few cases, full-time writers, living like Diderot, aux gages des libraires (in the pay of the booksellers).

如果能以此为结尾，确立一个清晰的模式，并将哲学家们置于其中，那将令人十分满意。然而不幸的是，文学理论家们告诫历史学家要警惕文本，因为无论文本看起来多么严谨，都可能被批判性阅读分解成“话语”。因此，历史学家在将警方报告视为不可还原的现实碎片之前，应该三思而后行。他们不应仅仅从档案中挖掘、筛选、拼凑，就妄图以此重建一个完整的历史。这些报告本身也是一种建构，建立在对作家和写作本质的隐含假设之上，而当时的文学尚未被视为一种职业。

It would be satisfying to end on that note, with a pattern firmly established and the philosophes located within it. Unfortunately, however, literary theorists have taught historians to beware of texts, which can be dissolved into “discourse” by critical reading, no matter how solid they may seem. So the historian should hesitate before treating police reports as hard nuggets of irreducible reality, which he has only to mine out of the archives, sift, and piece together in order to create a solid reconstruction of the past. The reports are constructions of their own, built on implicit assumptions about the nature of writers and writing at a time when literature had not yet been recognized as a vocation.

在撰写报告时，德·埃梅里本人也扮演着作家的角色。他既是文坛的一份子，又同时服从于法国警察总长和其他官员。这些报告展现出一种兼具文学敏感性和官僚秩序的特质，这在当今大多数警察总部是难以想象的。报告中对作者文风的评价与对其宗教和政治观点的评述一样详尽。例如，在关于克雷基侯爵夫人的报告中，德·埃梅里摘录了她所写的一篇对话的三页节选，并非因为其与当时的意识形态问题有任何关联，而是因为它展现了她精湛的散文功底。他赞扬一切他所发现的“品味”、“智慧”和“才华”，即使是在像伏尔泰这样的“劣质”人物身上也不例外。“Esprit”（机智）是他最喜欢的词汇。这似乎是他挑选作家时首先考虑的因素，也弥补了作家们在写作上偏离正道的诸多不足。保罗-弗朗索瓦·韦利神父“非常聪明”，却是个花花公子，不过“几乎所有离开修道院的修士都是如此”。让-皮埃尔·贝尔纳也是如此，这位“聪明”的神父尤其擅长葬礼布道：“他是个乐天派，喜欢寻欢作乐，一有机会就和姑娘们共度良宵。”

In drafting his reports, d‘Hémery acted as a kind of writer himself. He, too, played a role in the republic of letters while at the same time remaining subordinate to the Lieutenant-Général de Police and other officials in the French state. The reports show a combination of literary sensitivity and bureaucratic orderliness that would be unthinkable in most police headquarters today. They contain as many remarks about the quality of the authors’ style as about the character of their religious and political opinions. In the report on the marquise de Créquy, for example, d’Hémery included a three-page excerpt of a dialogue she had written, not because it had any relevance to the ideological issues of the day but because it demonstrated her perfect mastery of prose. He praised “taste,” “wit,” and “talent” wherever he found it, even among “bad subjects” like Voltaire. Esprit (cleverness) was his favorite term. It seems to have been the first thing that he looked for in a writer, and it compensated for a good deal of straying from the straight and narrow. The abbé Paul-François Velly was “a very clever man” and a skirt chaser, but so were “almost all monks when they leave the monastery.” The same went for Jean-Pierre Bernard, a “clever” priest with a special talent for funeral sermons: “He is a jolly old boy who enjoys pleasure and spends an evening with the girls whenever he gets a chance.”

德·埃梅里深谙世事。他并不反感些许粗俗或反教权主义，尤其当这些被“天才”所抵消时，例如亚历克西·皮龙的作品：“他尖刻的机智和不敬神明的名声使他未能成为法兰西学院院士。克雷比永先生曾劝他不要妄想当选。但《忘恩负义的儿子》、《古斯塔夫》和《地铁狂热》足以证明他的才华。他无论做什么都能成功。”德·埃梅里钦佩启蒙思想家，至少是那些温和派的启蒙思想家，例如丰特奈尔、杜克洛和达朗贝尔。但他对无神论深恶痛绝，而且似乎真心相信官方的正统教义。他的价值观在所有记载中都清晰可见，尤其是在他对普通作家（例如让-巴蒂斯特·勒马斯克里耶）的随口评论中：

D‘Hémery understood the ways of the world. He did not take offense at a little bawdiness or anticlericalism, especially when it was offset by “genius,” as in the work of Alexis Piron: “His biting wit and reputation for impiety mean that he is not a member of the Académie Française. M. de Crébillon advised him never to think of being elected. But Les fils ingrats, Gustave, and La métromanie bear sufficient testimony to his genius. He can succeed in anything he undertakes.” D’Hémery admired the philosophes, at least the moderate ones, like Fontenelle, Duclos, and d’Alembert. But he was horrified at atheism, and he seems to have sincerely believed in the official orthodoxies. His values show through clearly in all the reports, but especially in off-hand remarks on ordinary writers, like Jean-Baptiste Le Mascrier:

简而言之，德·埃梅里以同情、幽默和对文学本身的欣赏来审视文学界。他与他所监视的人民持有某些共同的价值观，但他对教会和国家的忠诚却毫不动摇。将他想象成现代警察，或者将他的警务工作解读为猎巫行动，都是极其不合时宜的。它实际上代表着一些不太为人所知却又更有趣的东西：专制时代的情报收集。在18世纪中期，当革命还不可想象的时候，没有人会期望揭露革命阴谋；但波旁王朝的许多官僚都渴望尽可能多地了解王国——人口数量、贸易额和印刷产量。德·埃梅里属于一脉相承的理性化官员，这一脉从科尔贝和沃邦一直延续到杜尔哥和内克尔。但他行事级别不高——图书贸易督察的​​级别比制造业督察低一两个档次——而且他收集档案的规模也比一些部长和地方官员进行的调查要小^。7

In short, d‘Hémery took stock of the literary world with sympathy, humor, and an appreciation of literature itself. He shared some of the values held by the people under his surveillance, but he did not waver in his loyalty to church and state. Nothing could be more anachronistic than to picture him as a modern cop or to interpret his police work as witch-hunting. It really represents something less familiar and more interesting: information gathering in the age of absolutism. No one expected to uncover revolutionary conspiracies in the mid-eighteenth century, when the Revolution was unthinkable; but many bureaucrats in the Bourbon monarchy wanted to learn as much as possible about the kingdom—about the number of its inhabitants, the volume of its trade, and the output of its presses. D’Hémery belonged to a line of rationalizing officials that extended from Colbert and Vauban to Turgot and Necker. But he operated at a modest level—an inspector of the book trade belonged a notch or two below an inspector of manufactures—and he built up his files on a smaller scale than some of the surveys undertaken by ministers and intendants.⁷

这些报告的文本中包含一些关于其写作方式的证据。报告中经常出现“见附件”或“见他的档案”之类的字眼，表明德·埃梅里为每位作家都建有档案。尽管这些档案已经遗失，但报告中对它们的提及揭示了其中所包含的信息类型。这些档案包括期刊剪报、书商的宣传册、德·埃梅里巡视时所做的笔记、巴士底狱的审讯记录、一些作家为了讨好或诋毁敌人而写的信件，以及受雇于法国警察总长的间谍的报告。有些间谍甚至还有自己的档案。关于穆伊骑士查尔斯·德·菲厄的报告揭示了他们的运作方式：“他是贝里耶先生（警察中将）的间谍，每天都向他汇报在咖啡馆、剧院和公共花园里看到的一切。” 在其他报告中也能找到穆伊活动的痕迹，例如关于马蒂厄-弗朗索瓦·皮丹萨·德·迈罗贝尔的报告：“他刚刚因在咖啡馆散发攻击国王和蓬帕杜夫人的诗作而被捕并被送往巴士底狱。在他被捕时，甚至在他的口袋里发现了这些诗作。正是穆伊骑士告发了他。” 告发者还包括被抛弃的情人、愤怒的儿子和疏远的妻子。书商和印刷商源源不断地提供关于他们书籍来源的信息——尤其是竞争对手书籍的来源。房东太太和医生们提供了更多细节，在德·埃梅里整理的许多档案底部，还能找到一些从邻里闲聊中收集来的零星信息，并非全是恶意的。例如，埃蒂安-安德烈·菲利普·德·普雷托写道：“至于他的行为，还算不错。他已婚，有孩子，这迫使他做事有条理。他在邻里间口碑很好。”

The texts of the reports contain some evidence about the way they were written. They often include remarks such as “See the attached sheets” or “See his dossier,” which indicate that d‘Hémery kept a file on each writer. Although the dossiers have disappeared, the references to them in the reports reveal the kind of information they contained. They included clippings from journals, prospectuses from booksellers, notes that d’Hémery made when he went on his rounds, records of interrogations in the Bastille, letters from authors who wanted to ingratiate themselves or to undermine their enemies, and reports from spies in the hire of the Lieutenant-Général de Police. Some of the spies had dossiers of their own. The report on Charles de Fieux, chevalier de Mouhy, shows how they worked: “He is a spy for M. Berryer [the Lieutenant-Général de Police], to whom he furnishes a daily report on everything he sees in the cafés, theaters, and public gardens.” One can also find traces of Mouhy’s activities in other reports, such as the one on Mathieu-François Pidansat de Mairobert: “He has just been arrested and taken to the Bastille for having distributed some [verse] attacking the king and Mme la marquise [de Pompadour] in cafés. Some was even found in his pockets upon his arrest. It was the chevalier de Mouhy who denounced him.” Denunciations also arrived from jilted lovers, angry sons, and estranged wives. Booksellers and printers produced a steady flow of information about the sources of their copy—and especially the copy of their competitors. Landladies and cures supplied further details, and at the bottom of many dossiers d’Hémery could find scraps collected from neighborhood gossips, not all of it malicious. Thus Etienne-André Philippe de Prétot: “As to his conduct, it is fairly good. He is married and has children, which forces him to be orderly. He is well spoken of in his neighborhood.”

德埃梅里在撰写报告前仔细查阅了所有这些资料。筛选和选择的过程想必十分困难，因为这些档案中既有确凿的数据，也有零散的传闻，可谓五花八门。因此，德埃梅里采用了标准格式——印有六个粗体标题的大对开纸：姓名、年龄、出生地、描述、地址和故事（histoire）。这些标题构成了一个信息分类的框架，而标题下的条目日期和笔迹则为我们了解德埃梅里的写作方式提供了一些线索。大多数条目都以清晰的笔迹书写，但后来德埃梅里用他自己的潦草笔迹添加了一些新信息，这种笔迹很容易从法国国家图书馆收藏的他的信件和备忘录中辨认出来。大约一半的报告日期是每月的第一天，其中许多是每年的第一天。因此，德·埃梅里很可能专门抽出几天时间来整理档案，召来警局的一位秘书，口述报告，逐卷筛选出他认为最重要的信息。整个过程表明他试图建立系统性，力图将杂乱无章的阁楼文士和沙龙里的风云人物的世界纳入秩序。这与《蒙彼利埃描述》背后的整理冲动如出一辙，只是形式不同：现代官僚机构的标准化、归类、归档和分类的驱动力。

D‘Hémery culled through all this material before composing a report. The sifting and selecting must have been difficult because the dossiers contained such a disparate mixture of hard data and loose gossip. So d’Hémery used standard forms—large folio sheets with six headings printed in bold type: name, age, birthplace, description, address, and histoire (story). The headings provided a grid for classifying the information, and the dates and handwriting of the entries under them provide some clues about d‘Hémery’s mode of composition. Most of the entries are written in a clear, scribal hand, but at later dates d’Hémery added new information in his own scrawl, which can be recognized easily from the letters and memorandums by him in the Bibliothèque Nationale. About half the reports are dated on the first day of the month, many of them on the first of the year. It seems likely, therefore, that d’Hémery set aside special days to work over his files, called in one of the secretaries in the police administration, and dictated the reports, selecting the information that seemed most important to him, dossier by dossier. The whole process suggests an attempt to be systematic, a will to impose order on an unruly world of garret scribblers and salon lions. It corresponds to the same ordering impulse behind the Description of Montpellier, but it took a different form: the standardizing, pigeon-holing, filing-and-classifying drive of the modern bureaucracy.

德埃梅里代表了官僚主义发展早期阶段的代表人物；因此，从他报告的标准格式中，我们可以清晰地听到他个人的声音。他以第一人称单数写作，风格随意，这与他正式信函中正式而冷漠的语气形成了鲜明的对比。他的备忘录和信件通常写给“阁下”——尼古拉斯-勒内·贝里耶，警察中将——而他的报告似乎是写给自己的。例如，在填写勒布朗·德·维尔纳夫的出生地时，他漫不经心地纠正自己：“来自里昂。不，我错了；是蒙特利马尔，一位上尉的儿子。”在关于科戈兰骑士的报告中，他写道：

D’Hémery represents an early phase in the evolution of the bureaucrat; so his own voice can be heard quite clearly through the standard format of the reports. He composed in the first person singular and in a casual style, which contrasts markedly with the formal and impersonal tone of his official correspondence. Whereas his memos and letters were often directed to “Monseigneur”—Nicolas-René Berryer, the Lieutenant-Général de Police—his reports seem to have been addressed to himself. While filling in the birthplace of Le Blanc de Villeneuve, for example, he corrected himself off-handedly: “From Lyon. No, I’m wrong; it’s Montélimar, the son of a captain.” In the report on the chevalier de Cogolin, he noted:

和所有人一样，德·埃梅里也需要在世间寻求秩序，但他同时也面临着如何熟悉自己管辖范围的挑战。一位督察如何“督察”文坛呢？首先，他必须能够辨认作家；因此，他在填写“描述”（signalement）一栏时格外用心。这些描述体现了他对受其监督的作家的观察方式。例如，伏尔泰的描述是：“高大、瘦削，举止像个萨提尔。” 描述远不止是图像对眼球的冲击。它们蕴含着丰富的意义：“丑陋、像癞蛤蟆，快要饿死了”（宾维尔）；“肥胖、笨拙，举止像个农民”（凯吕斯）；“丑陋、黝黑、矮小、肮脏、令人作呕”（茹尔丹）。德·埃梅里超越了英俊或丑陋、矮小或高大等简单的分类，因为他能从面孔中解读信息。因此，拉莫利埃骑士被描述为：“肥胖，脸庞圆润，眼神中透着某种东西。”这种通过面相判断性格的做法可能源于相面术，这是一种伪科学，兴起于文艺复兴时期，并在随后的几个世纪里通过通俗小册子传播开来。 ⁹ 德埃梅里的描述中包含大量诸如“面相和性格都很严厉”（勒拉茨）、“面相非常诚实”（丰斯马涅）、“面相令人厌恶”（科克）、“面相阴险” （维厄梅松）、“面相丑陋”（比列纳）以及“世界上最悲伤的面相”（布瓦西）之类的评论。

Like everyone else, d‘Hémery had to see some order in the world, but he also faced the task of finding his way around his beat. How did an inspector “inspect” the republic of letters? As a start, he had to be able to recognize writers; so he took some care in filling out the entries under the rubric signalement (description). They suggest the way he looked at the authors under his surveillance. Thus, for example, the signalement of Voltaire: “Tall, dry, and the bearing of a satyr.” Descriptions involved something more than the impact of an image on an eyeball. They were charged with meaning: “Nasty, toadlike, and dying of hunger” (Binville); “fat, ungainly, and the bearing of a peasant” (Caylus); “nasty, swarthy, small, filthy, and disgusting” (Jourdan). D’Hémery went beyond simple categories like handsome or ugly and short or tall, because he perceived messages in faces. Thus the chevalier de La Morlière: “Fat, full-faced, and a certain something in his eyes.” This practice of reading faces for character probably derived from physiognomy, a pseudoscience that had emerged during the Renaissance and had spread everywhere during the subsequent centuries through popular chapbooks.⁹ D’Hémery’s descriptions contained a great many remarks such as “a harsh physiognomy and character, too” (Le Ratz), “a very honest physiognomy” (Foncemagne), “detestable physiognomy” (Coq), “perfidious physiognomy” (Vieuxmaison), “hideous physiognomy” (Biliena), and “the saddest physiognomy in the world” (Boissy).

同样，地址也传递着意义。皮丹萨·德·迈罗贝尔独自一人住在“科德利埃街三楼一位洗衣妇的房间里”。他显然是个边缘人物，就像一位名叫勒布伦的学生诗人，住在“哈普街，正对着哈尔库尔学院，假发匠的房间，二楼后侧”，还有一位同样默默无闻的诗人沃热，住在“马扎林街，从布西十字路口进入，左边第一个假发匠的房间，二楼临街，门正对着楼梯”。这些人值得关注。他们没有固定的地位，没有财产、家庭和邻里关系。单凭地址就足以确定他们的处境。

Similarly, addresses gave off meanings. Pidansat de Mairobert lived alone “in the rooms of a washerwoman on the third floor, rue des Cordeliers.” He was obviously a marginal type, like a student-poet named Le Brun, who lived in the “rue de la Harpe, facing the College d’Harcourt, in a furnished room kept by a wig maker, on the second floor at the back” and an equally obscure versifier named Vauger, who lived “in the rue Mazarine in a furnished room kept by the first wig maker on the left, entering from the Carrefour de Buci, on the second floor on the street side, the door facing the stairs.” Such men bore watching. They had no fixed état, no grounding in property, family, and neighborhood connections. Their addresses alone sufficed to place them.

“故事集”这一栏目为作者的定位提供了最大的空间，德·埃梅里也将其在印刷表格中占据了最大的篇幅。撰写故事集时，他需要从档案中挑选和整理最多的素材，因为他的作品是叙事性的，其复杂程度堪比农民的民间故事。有些作品甚至读起来像小说的摘要。例如，剧作家查尔斯-西蒙·法瓦尔的故事集：

The rubric histoire provided the most room for situating the writers, and d’Hémery accorded it the largest space on his printed forms. It was in composing histoires that he had to do the most selecting and organizing of material from the dossiers, for his compositions were narratives, as complex in their way as the folktales of the peasants. Some of them even read like digests of novels. Thus the histoire of the playwright Charles-Simon Favart:

德埃梅里选用简洁的词句，并以清晰的时间顺序展开叙述，但他讲述的却是一个错综复杂的故事。尽管他没有添加任何评论性的修饰，却成功地展现了两个出身卑微的年轻人如何在朝臣云集、 密信往来的世界里凭借智慧生存的故事。德埃梅里并没有对底层民众的困境进行煽情。相反，他着重描写了法瓦尔愿意与元帅分享妻子，以及她巧妙地利用局势为自己谋利的能力。然而，故事中暗流涌动，逐渐将读者的同情心从权贵身上转移开来。法瓦尔如同童话故事中的英雄一般，开始着手发家致富。他身材矮小，家境贫寒，却聪明伶俐（“简介：个子矮，金发碧眼，长相俊美。”）。在巨人国经历了一系列奇遇之后——萨克斯元帅在18世纪40年代的法国，除了国王之外，大概是最有权势的人——他最终赢得了姑娘的芳心，从此在《意大利喜剧》中过上了幸福的生活。故事的结构与许多民间故事相似。它的寓意或许源自《基奥-让》、《被踩扁的猫》或《小锻造师》。但德·埃梅里并没有从中提炼出什么寓意。他继续研究下一个故事，人们不禁会想，在他看来，文学世界是否契合于一个最初在农民世界中构建的框架之中。

D‘Hémery chose simple phrases and organized his narrative around a straightforward chronological line, but he recounted a complicated story. Although he did not embellish it with editorial comments, he got across the notion of two young people from humble origins living by their wits in a world of courtiers and lettres de cachet. D’Hémery did not sentimentalize over the plight of the underprivileged. On the contrary, he noted Favart’s readiness to share his wife with the maréchal and her ability to turn the situation to her own advantage. But the narrative develops a powerful undertow, which sweeps the reader’s sympathies away from the rich and powerful. Favart sets out to make his fortune like a hero from the fairy tales. He is small, poor, and clever (“Signalement: short, blond, and with a very pretty face.”) After all kinds of adventures in the land of giants—and the maréchal de Saxe was probably the most powerful man in France, aside from the king, in the 1740s—he wins the girl and they live happily ever after in the Comédie Italienne. The structure of the story corresponded to that of many popular tales. Its moral might have come from “Kiot-Jean,” “Le Chat botté,” or “Le Petit Forgeron.” But d’Hémery did not draw a moral. He went on to the next dossier, and one can only wonder whether the world of letters, as he inspected it, fit into a framework that had originally been devised in the world of peasants.

无论如何，警方报告的撰写都包含叙事成分，对作家的“检查”也是在某种意义框架内进行的。因此，我们可以将这些“故事集”解读为有意义的故事，它们揭示了旧制度下文学生活的一些基本假设。这些故事集鲜少像法瓦尔的那份那样详尽。有些甚至只有两三句话，彼此之间缺乏叙事线索。但它们都基于对文学界运作方式的预设，即文学共和国的游戏规则。德·埃梅里并非这些规则的发明者。和作家们一样，他理所当然地接受了这些规则，并观察它们在他所监视的作家生涯中的运作。尽管他的观察带有主观性，却具有一定的普遍意义；因为它们属于一种共同的主观性，一种社会建构的现实，而这种主观性是他与他所观察的作家们共同拥有的。为了解读这些共同的密码，我们必须重新阅读这些报告，探寻字里行间隐藏的、被假定的、未被言明的深意。

In any case, the construction of a police report involved an element of storytelling, and the “inspection” of writers took place within a frame of meaning. One can therefore read the histoires as meaningful stories, which reveal some basic assumptions about literary life under the Old Regime. Few of them are as elaborate as Favart’s. Some contain only two or three sentences, unconnected by a narrative line. But they all proceed from presuppositions about the way the literary world operated, the rules of the game in the republic of letters. D’Hémery did not invent those rules. Like the writers themselves, he took them for granted and then watched them at work in the careers under his surveillance. Despite their subjective character, his observations have some general significance; for they belong to a common subjectivity, a social construction of reality, which he shared with the men he observed. In order to decipher their common code, one must reread the reports for what remains between the lines, assumed and so unsaid.

以一篇关于法兰西共和国杰出文人弗朗索瓦-约阿希姆·德·皮埃尔（又名贝尔尼斯神父）的典型报道为例。他自29岁起便成为法兰西学院院士，尽管他只发表过一些轻松的诗歌和一部内容浅薄的论著《论激情与品味》（Réflexions sur les passions et les goûts）。他出身名门，深受蓬帕杜夫人的宠爱，在教会和国家中迅速晋升，最终荣膺红衣主教之位，并出任驻罗马大使。德·埃梅里在报道这样一位人物时会选择哪些信息呢？在记录了贝尔尼斯的年龄（正值壮年——38岁）、住址（地道——太子街）和外貌（同样出色——“英俊的面相”）之后，他着重强调了以下六点：

Consider a typical report about an eminent citizen of the republic of letters, François-Joachim de Pierres, abbé de Bernis. He had sat in the Académie Française from the age of twenty-nine, although he had published only some light verse and an insubstantial treatise, Réflexions sur les passions et les goûts. A member of a distinguished family and a favorite of Mme de Pompadour, he was rising rapidly through the offices of church and state, which eventually would lead to a cardinal’s hat and the ambassadorship in Rome. What information did d’Hémery select for a report on such a man? After noting Bernis’s age (in his prime—thirty—eight), address (good—rue du Dauphin), and looks (also good—“handsome physiognomy”), he stressed six points:

从那些地位远低于德·贝尔尼神父的作家的记载中，我们可以看出这种现象在中下层文坛的盛行。例如，皮埃尔·洛容就遵循着一条在文坛中上层常见的晋升之路。像许多作家一样，他最初是一名法学生，写作诗歌纯粹出于兴趣。他的诗歌在喜歌剧院一炮而红；这吸引了赞助人；而赞助人又为他谋得了闲职。这是一个经典的成功故事，其各个阶段在德·埃梅里的叙述中清晰可见：

That it prevailed at the middle and lower ranges of literary life can be appreciated from the reports on writers located well below the abbé de Bernis. Pierre Laujon, for example, followed a well-traveled route through the upper-middle ranks of the republic of letters. Like many writers, he began as a law student and wrote verse for pleasure. The versifying resulted in a hit at the Opera Comique; the hit attracted protectors; and the protectors procured sinecures. It was a classic success story, whose stages stand out clearly in d’Hémery’s narrative:

加布里埃尔-弗朗索瓦·科耶也是如此，尽管他的才华稍逊一筹，在文坛也始终徘徊在中游。他既无财富，也无人脉，甚至连一张俊美的脸庞（“面容难看而瘦长”）都未曾谋面，但他依然坚持不懈地创作书籍和文学作品。最终，一份稳定的收入来源出现了，他牢牢抓住了它。

So did Gabriel-François Coyer, though he had a weaker hand and never rose above a middle rung in the literary hierarchy. Without wealth, family connections, or a pleasing face (“disagreeable and elongated physiognomy”), he nonetheless persevered in turning out books and belles-lettres. Finally a source of steady income opened up, and he snatched it.

贝尔尼斯的一位门生安托万·德·洛雷斯，在仕途的阶梯上处于一个岌岌可危的中下层。当德·埃梅里撰写关于洛雷斯的最初报告时，他无法预料这位年轻人的命运将会如何。一方面，他出身名门：他的父亲是蒙彼利埃的审计长。另一方面，他却已身无分文。事实上，如果他那些献给国王和蓬帕杜夫人的颂歌不能尽快为他带来赞助，他恐怕就要饿死在阁楼里了。但根据报告后添加的一则注释，这些诗歌似乎确实奏效了。

One of Bernis’s protégés, Antoine de Laurès, occupied a precarious position on a lower-middle rung of the ladder. When he drafted the original report on Laurès, d’Hémery could not predict which way the young man’s career would turn. On the one hand, he came from a good family: his father was Doyen de la Chambre des Comptes in Montpellier. On the other, he had run out of money. In fact, he would starve in his garret if his odes to the king and to Mme de Pompadour did not bring in some patronage soon. But according to a note added later to the report, the verse seemed to be working.

在地位更低的底层，书商之子皮埃尔-让·布多（Pierre-Jean Boudot）却著述颇丰，他从事书籍的编纂、节选和翻译工作。然而，他的生计却依赖于庇护。“他非常聪明，而且受到总统埃诺（Hénault）的严密保护，埃诺为他在国王图书馆（Bibliotheque du Roi）谋得了一份工作，”德·埃梅里（d'Hémery）指出，并补充说，人们认为布多撰写了大部分以埃诺名义出版的《法国史概要》（Abrégé de l'histoire de France） 。与此同时，咖啡馆老板之子、年仅24岁的皮埃尔·杜福尔（Pierre Dufour）则在文坛底层苦苦挣扎。他曾在印刷厂当过跑腿，兜售过禁书。凭借教父法瓦尔（Favart）的帮助，他得以混入意大利喜剧院（Comédie Italienne）和喜歌剧院（Opera Comique）的演员和剧作家圈子。不知怎的，他与鲁班普雷伯爵勾结，伯爵给他提供住处和一些无力的保护。德埃梅里把杜福尔描述成一个可疑的人物，一个四处奔波、投机取巧的骗子，他一边假装替警察监视地下文学，一边创作和兜售地下文学：“他是个狡猾的小家伙，非常滑溜。” 杜福尔实际上写了很多东西——六部戏剧和小品、一本诗集和一部小说。但他没能把这些作品转化为任何一份工作；所以他最终放弃了写作，在一家书店找了份工作。

On a still lower rung, Pierre-Jean Boudot, the son of a bookseller, compiled, abridged, and translated prodigiously. But he depended on protectors for his living. “He is very clever and is very protected by the président Hénault, who got a job in the Bibliotheque du Roi for him,” d‘Hémery noted, adding that Boudot was believed to have written most of the Abrégé de l’histoire de France that appeared under Hénault’s name. Meanwhile, Pierre Dufour, the twenty-four-year-old son of a café owner, was trying to make his way at the bottom of the literary world. He worked as an errand boy in a printing shop. He peddled prohibited books. He insinuated himself among the actors and playwrights of the Comédie Italienne and the Opera Comique, thanks to the favor of Favart, his godfather. And somehow he attached himself to the comte de Rubanprez, who gave him lodging and some ineffectual protection. D’Hémery put Dufour down as a suspicious character, a scrambler and hustler, who would write and peddle underground literature, while pretending to keep an eye on it for the police: “He is a devious little guy, and very slippery.” Dufour actually wrote a great deal—a half-dozen plays and skits, a book of poems, and a novel. But he failed to parlay any of it into a position; so he finally gave up writing and settled for a job in a bookstore.

在德·埃梅里笔下，文人墨客对自身地位的追求无处不在，这种持续不断的、不遗余力的寻求庇护的现象也随处可见。弗朗索瓦·奥吉耶·德·马里尼听说荣军院有个空缺，便匆匆写了几首诗赞美阿尔让松伯爵，伯爵便指派人选。查尔斯·巴特克斯努力讨好蓬帕杜夫人，因此赢得了纳瓦拉学院的空缺教授职位。让·德罗姆戈尔德注意到一首关于丰特努瓦战役的诗没有充分颂扬克莱蒙伯爵的英勇，便在一本小册子中抨击这首诗，结果立刻被任命为克莱蒙伯爵的“命令秘书”。

The constant, unremitting quest for protection stands out everywhere in d‘Hémery’s accounts of literary careers. François Augier de Marigny hears a position has opened up in the Invalides and dashes off some poems in praise of the comte d’Argenson, who will name someone to it. Charles Batteux cultivates the doctor of Mme de Pompadour and therefore wins a vacant professorship in the College de Navarre. Jean Dromgold notes that the valor of the comte de Clermont is not adequately celebrated in a poem about the battle of Fontenoy. He attacks the poem in a pamphlet and is promptly named Secrétaire des Commandements de Mgr. le comte de Clermont.

这就是文坛的现实。德埃梅里毫不掩饰地记录了这一切，既没有对作家间的阿谀奉承进行任何道德说教，也没有对庇护者的虚荣心进行任何批判。相反，当一位受其庇护的人背弃了对庇护人应有的绝对忠诚时，他显得十分震惊。安托万·杜朗隆赢得了罗昂家族的青睐，在他担任罗昂家族的家庭教师并尽职尽责地服务之后，被任命为热尔韦大师学院的院长。然而，杜朗隆上任后，却在索邦大学与罗昂家族就罗昂-盖梅内神父所主张的一些荣誉权利发生争执，并站在了反对罗昂家族的一方。罗昂家族剥夺了杜朗隆的职务，并将他流放到布雷斯——德埃梅里评论说，这是他咎由自取，因为这位受其庇护的人对庇护人表现出了“最卑鄙的忘恩负义”。相比之下，F.-AP de Moncrif 的行为则令人赞叹。Moncrif 的一切都归功于阿尔让松伯爵，正如前文所述，正是阿尔让松伯爵一手包办了他理想的文学生涯：三个秘书职位、在《学者杂志》的收入分成、法兰西学院的席位、杜伊勒里宫的公寓，以及一份年薪 6000 里弗的邮政工作。当 Moncrif 发现一些讽刺国王和蓬帕杜夫人的讽刺作品出自宫廷中反对阿尔让松、支持莫尔帕的派系时，他立即谴责了这些作者——这样做完全正确：作家不仅不应该恩将仇报，更应该打击敌营中的所有人。

Such were the facts of literary life. D‘Hémery recorded them unblinkingly, without any moralizing about toadyism among the writers or the vanity of protectors. On the contrary, he sounded shocked when a protégé deviated from the unswerving loyalty he owed to his patron. Antoine Duranlon had won the favor of the house of Rohan, which had him named principal of the College de Maitre Gervais after he had served the family satisfactorily as a tutor. But once he was installed, Duranlon sided with a faction in the Sorbonne that opposed the Rohans in a quarrel over some honorific rights claimed by the abbé de Rohan-Guémenée. The Rohans had Duranlon stripped of his post and exiled to Bresse—and it served him right, d’Hémery observed, for the protégé had responded to the protector with “the blackest ingratitude.” How laudatory, by contrast, was the behavior of F.-A. P. de Moncrif. Moncrif owed everything to the comte d‘Argenson, who as already mentioned had seen him through all the stops of an ideal literary career: three secretaryships, a cut in the revenue of the Journal des savants, a seat in the Académie Française, an apartment in the Tuileries, and a position in the postal service worth 6,000 livres a year. When Moncrif uncovered some satires against the king and Mme de Pompadour emanating from the anti-d’Argenson, pro-Maurepas faction of the court, he promptly denounced their authors—and rightly so: not only should a writer never bite the hand that fed him, he should also smite all hands in the enemy camp.

因此，保护​​成为文学生活的基本原则。它在各种记载中无处不在，使得另一个现象——文学市场——的缺席显得格外引人注目。德·埃梅里偶尔会提到一些试图靠写作谋生的作家。例如，加布里埃尔-亨利·盖拉尔在1750年曾短暂涉足文学市场，此前他一直靠伏尔泰安排的工作维持生计（因为成名作家本身也扮演着保护者的角色）：“他曾在四国学院担任副图书管理员，一个无关紧要的职位，后来他辞去了这份工作，去担任儿童家庭教师，这份工作是伏尔泰先生为他安排的。他只做了六个月，现在就靠写作为生……他最后的几部作品充满了对伏尔泰的赞美，他完全献给了伏尔泰。” 但不久之后，他便在《 学者杂志》找到了一份工作，这份工作使他余下的职业生涯得以维持。德埃梅里还提到一位名叫拉巴尔的小册子作家，他在《亚琛和约》终止了外交部宣传员的工作后，陷入了“极其贫困”的境地，试图靠写作来维持生计。“战后他一无所有，只好投靠书商拉福里奥，后者勉强维持他的生计，并让他不时地写些东西。”但这种情况并不常见，并非因为缺乏需要资助的作家，而是因为书商不愿或无力提供帮助。在拉巴尔的报告后文中，德埃梅里提到，多亏了警察中将的斡旋，他最终在《法国公报》上找到了一份“小工作”。

Thus protection functioned as the basic principle of literary life. Its presence everywhere in the reports makes another phenomenon, the literary marketplace, look conspicuous by its absence. Occasionally d‘Hémery mentioned a writer who attempted to live by his pen. Gabriel-Henri Gaillard, for example, ventured into the market for a while in 1750, after living from jobs dispensed by Voltaire (for established writers also functioned as protectors themselves): “He was sub-librarian in the College des Quatres Nations, an unimportant position, which he quit in order to take up a job as a children’s tutor, which M. de Voltaire arranged for him. He only stayed in it for six months, and now he lives from his writing.... His last works are full of praise for Voltaire, to whom he is completely dedicated.” But soon afterward he took up a job on the Journal des savants, which kept him solvent for the rest of his career. D’Hémery also mentioned a pamphleteer named La Barre, who tried to write himself out of a state of “frightful indigence” when the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle put an end to his employment as a propagandist in the ministry of foreign affairs. “Having no resources whatsoever after the end of the war, he gave himself over to La Foliot [a bookseller], who keeps him alive and for whom he writes a few things from time to time.” But such cases were rare, not because there was any lack of writers who needed support but because the booksellers were unwilling or unable to provide it. And in a later entry in La Barre’s report, d’Hémery noted that he had finally snared “a small job on the Gazette de France,” thanks to the intervention of the Lieutenant-Général de Police.

当作家们急需用钱时，他们通常会从事一些边缘活动，例如走私禁书或为警方监视走私者。他们无法指望凭借畅销书一夜暴富，因为出版商垄断了图书发行权，盗版猖獗，使得他们几乎不可能从销售中获得丰厚的收入。他们从未获得过版税，只能将手稿以一次性付款或一定数量的印刷版书籍的形式出售，然后兜售或赠送给潜在的保护者。尽管有卢梭因《爱弥儿》获得6000里弗尔的报酬，以及狄德罗因二十年心血编纂《百科全书》而获得12万里弗尔的著名案例，但手稿的价格通常并不高。德埃梅里指出，弗朗索瓦-文森特·图桑的畅销书《风俗》的手稿只卖了500里弗，而他的出版商德莱斯皮内却从中至少赚了10000里弗。图桑的例子说明了一种普遍现象：“他为书商做了很多工作，这意味着他很难维持生计。”德埃梅里还评论说，约瑟夫·德·拉波特靠写作为生，“仅靠写作度日”，仿佛这很不寻常。当时的普遍模式是，努力获得足够的声望，以吸引庇护人，并在皇家机构或富裕人家中谋得一席之地。

When desperate for money, writers generally fell back on marginal activities, such as smuggling prohibited books or spying on the smugglers for the police. They could not hope to strike it rich with a best-seller because the publishers’ monopoly of book privileges and the pirating industry made it impossible to expect much from sales. They never received royalties, but sold manuscripts for lump sums or a certain number of copies of the printed book, which they peddled or gave to potential protectors. Manuscripts rarely fetched much, despite the famous case of the 6,000 livres paid to Rousseau for Emile and the 120,000 livres that went to Diderot for twenty years of labor on the Encyclopédie. D‘Hémery noted that François-Vincent Toussaint received only 500 livres for the manuscript of his best-seller, Les Moeurs, although his publisher, Delespine, made at least 10,000 livres from it. Toussaint’s case illustrated a general proposition: “He works a great deal for booksellers, which means that he has a hard time making ends meet.” D’Hémery remarked that Joseph de La Porte supported himself by his pen, “and has only that to live on,” as if that were unusual. The common pattern was to aim at enough succès de prestige to attract a protector and land a place in the royal administration or a wealthy household.

也可以结婚。让-路易·勒苏尔在文学史上并没有留下太多印记，但从警察的角度来看，他的经历堪称理想典范：他最初除了才华和亲和力之外一无所有，后来却获得了令人尊敬的声誉、一位保护人、一份闲职和一个富有的妻子。

One could also marry. Jean-Louis Lesueur did not leave much of a mark in the history of literature, but his career represented an ideal type from the viewpoint of the police: beginning with little more than talent and amiability, he acquired a respectable reputation, a protector, a sinecure, and a wealthy wife.

德埃梅里对婚姻并不抱有感伤之情。他将其视为事业发展中的一项战略举措——或者说是一个错误。在报道中，作家的妻子们似乎从未展现出智慧、修养或品德；她们要么富有，要么贫穷。因此，德埃梅里对C.-G.科克利·德·肖斯皮埃尔没有丝毫同情：“他娶了村里一个出身卑微的女孩，既无名无家。她唯一的优点是与前任总检察长的妻子有亲戚关系，而这位总检察长只是出于良心才娶了她（这位亲戚），此前他已将她长期包养为情妇。”同样，波瓦特文·杜利蒙似乎也不太可能凭借写作摆脱默默无闻的境地，因为“他在贝桑松结了一段糟糕的婚姻”。 “糟糕的”婚姻带来的不是金钱而是孩子，因此，报道显示，一系列不幸的一家之主都在与不利的人口形势作斗争——杜桑因为有十一个孩子而沦为蹩脚的作家；穆伊因为有五个孩子而为警察当间谍；德勒·德·拉迪埃和勒内·德·博纳瓦尔因为子女众多而背负重担，因此注定要在格拉布街度过余生。

D‘Hémery did not take a sentimental view of matrimony. He treated it as a strategic move in the making of a career—or else as a mistake. Writers’ wives never appeared as intelligent, cultivated, or virtuous in the reports; they were either rich or poor. Thus d’Hémery did not waste any sympathy on C.-G. Coqueley de Chaussepierre: “He married an unimportant girl from his village, who has neither birth nor wealth. Her sole merit is that she is related to the wife of the former Procureur Général, who only married her [the relation] as a matter of conscience, after having kept her for a long time as his mistress.” Similarly, Poiteven Dulimon seemed unlikely to scribble his way out of obscurity because “he made a bad marriage in Besançon.” “Bad” marriages produced children rather than money, and so the reports show a succession of unhappy pères de famille battling against unfavorable demographic odds—Toussaint, reduced to hack writing because he had eleven children; Mouhy, spying for the police because he had five; Dreux de Radier and René de Bonneval, weighed down with offspring and therefore condemned to Grub Street for the rest of their lives.

由此可见，那些需要“美满”婚姻却无法如愿的作家应该完全避免结婚。显然，他们中的大多数确实如此。德埃梅里虽然关注着家庭关系，但他只在二十几份报告中提及了妻子和孩子。尽管信息过于分散，难以得出确切结论，但似乎大多数作家，尤其是那些从事“知识分子职业”的作家，终身未婚。即便他们结婚，也往往要等到功成名就、获得闲职——甚至进入法兰西学院——之后才会考虑。J.-B.-L.格雷塞的经历便是如此，在警方眼中，他又是另一个成功案例：先是在法兰西喜剧院犯下几起谋杀案，然后当选为法兰西学院院士，最终，在44岁时，娶了亚眠一位富商的女儿。

It followed that writers who needed “good” marriages but could not make them should avoid matrimony altogether. Apparently most of them did. D’Hémery kept an eye on family connections, but he mentioned wives and children in only two dozen reports. Although the information is too scattered for one to draw firm conclusions, it seems that the majority of writers, especially those in the “intellectual trades,” never married. And if they did, they often waited until they had acquired a reputation and a sinecure—or even a seat in the Académie Française. Thus the career of J.-B.-L. Gresset, another success story in the eyes of the police: first several hits in the Comédie française, then election to the Académie, and finally, at age forty-four, the daughter of a wealthy merchant in Amiens.

但一位作家如何在追求不朽的道路上远离情欲呢？达朗贝尔敦促所有哲学家奉行贞洁和清贫的生活。 ¹²但德·埃梅里深知，这超出了肉体的承受范围。他承认爱情的存在，正如他承认婚姻的经济性一样。马蒙泰尔和法瓦尔在他们的报道中都以恋爱中者的身份出现——他们各自与一位被萨克斯元帅包养的女演员有染。马蒙泰尔的 故事和法瓦尔的故事一样充满了阴谋诡计；事实上，它读起来就像他们某部戏剧的情节：这位年轻的剧作家背着老元帅爱上了女演员米莱·韦里埃。他们解雇了一个仆人，以便在不被人察觉的情况下尽情释放他们的激情。那个为元帅效力，或许也为警方充当间谍的走狗，还是得知了他们的私情；很快，灾难降临——女演员每年损失12000里弗尔，而作家则失去了保护。但最终一切都圆满解决，因为米莱·韦里埃似乎成功地修复了与元帅的关系，而玛蒙泰尔则转而与她的同事米莱·克莱龙交往。德·埃梅里通过大量的渠道，无论是直接观察还是通过中间人，都清楚地看到，大多数作家都会有情妇。

But how was a writer to steer clear of passion while working his way up to immortality? D‘Alembert urged all philosophes to embrace a life of chastity and poverty.¹² But d’Hémery knew that that was more than flesh would bear. He recognized the existence of love just as he acknowledged the economics of marriage. Marmontel and Favart both appear as amourachés (in love) in their reports—each with an actress kept by the maréchal de Saxe. Marmontel’s histoire is as rich in intrigues as Favart’s; in fact, it reads like a plot from one of their plays: The young playwright falls in love with the actress, Mile Verrière, behind the back of the old maréchal. They dismiss a lackey so that they can give full rein to their passion without being observed. The lackey, who operates as a spy for the maréchal and perhaps for the police as well, learns of their liaison nonetheless; and soon they face disaster—the loss of 12,000 livres a year for the actress and the severing of protections for the author. But all ends well because Mile Verrière apparently succeeds in repairing the damage with the maréchal while Marmontel moves on to one of her colleagues, Mile Cléron. After looking through a great many keyholes, either directly or through intermediaries, d’Hémery saw quite clearly that most writers would take mistresses.

说起来容易做起来难。法兰西喜剧院的女演员们很少会主动投入穷困潦倒的作家的怀抱，即便他们拥有像马蒙泰尔和法瓦尔那样俊美的容貌。格拉布街的男人们则与他们圈子里的女性——女仆、店员、洗衣妇和妓女——同居。这样的环境往往难以孕育幸福的家庭，德·埃梅里笔下的 故事也鲜有圆满结局，尤其从女性视角来看更是如此。不妨想想A.-J.肖梅克斯的爱情生活。这位名不见经传的作家来到巴黎时身无分文，却怀揣着远大的抱负。起初，他靠在寄宿学校兼职教书勉强糊口。但学校倒闭后，他只好搬进一家出租屋，在那里，他许诺娶一位女仆为妻，并以此诱惑了她。然而，他很快就对她失去了兴趣。由于他开始靠为书商赫里桑特撰写反启蒙运动的小册子赚些钱，被他抛弃的未婚妻（可能已经怀孕）向赫里桑特索要赔偿，并设法从肖梅克斯的账户中拿到了300里弗尔。之后，肖梅克斯又和另一位自由教师的妹妹在一起了。这一次他没有逃避婚姻，尽管据德·埃梅里所说，这个女人“是个泼妇，一无是处，他也没从她那里得到什么”。但几年后，他逃到俄罗斯去当家教，留下妻子和年幼的女儿。

Easier said than done. Actresses from the Comédie française did not often throw themselves into the arms of impecunious authors, even those with physiognomies like Marmontel and Favart. The men of Grub Street lived with women from their own milieu—servants, shop girls, laundresses, and prostitutes. The setting did not tend to produce happy households, and few of d‘Hémery’s histoires had happy endings, especially if seen from the woman’s point of view. Consider the love life of A.-J. Chaumeix, an unknown author who arrived in Paris with little money and great expectations. At first he survived by part-time teaching in a boarding school. But the school collapsed, and he retreated to a rooming house, where he seduced the servant girl, after promising marriage. He soon fell out of love with her, however. And as he had begun to make some money by writing anti-Enlightenment tracts for the bookseller Herissant, the jilted fiancée, who was probably pregnant, demanded reparations from Herissant and managed to collect 300 livres from Chaumeix’s account. Chaumeix then took up with the sister of another free-lance teacher. This time he did not escape from marriage, even though the woman was “a she-devil, who is worth nothing and from whom he got nothing,” according to d’Hémery. But some years later, he ran off to a tutoring job in Russia, leaving his wife and a baby daughter behind.

对于文人来说，婚外情是危险的，因为他可能会娶自己的情妇，无论这段婚姻多么“糟糕”。德·埃梅里记载，A.-G. 梅斯尼耶·德·奎尔隆爱上了一位老鸨，为了把她从监狱里救出来而娶了她。不久之后，他就陷入了困境，还要养家糊口。后来，他被任命为《法国公报》的编辑，之后又担任《小海报》的编辑，这使他免于贫困；但他始终未能积攒足够的钱财安度晚年，最终不得不依靠一位金融家提供的养老金。根据德·埃梅里档案中记载的几位作家的私生活，他们中的一些人也沉迷于妓院。一位名叫米隆的诗人发现自己无法摆脱对四岔路口一家妓院老鸨的迷恋，而他又是那里的常客。剧作家兼未来的记者皮埃尔·卢梭与一位妓女的女儿同居，并谎称她是自己的妻子。另外两位文艺工作者，编纂者F.-H.图尔潘和一位名叫盖内（Guenet）的小册子作家，不仅光顾妓院，还娶了妓女为妻。格拉布街的婚姻偶尔也能美满。德埃梅里（D'Hémery）指出，路易·安索姆（Louis Anseaume）在娶了喜歌剧院一位女演员的妹妹之前，一直过着潦倒的生活——“这是一场出于无奈而非出于爱意的婚姻”。两年后，他事业有成，创作并制作喜歌剧。但婚姻通常会拖垮一位作家。在关于贫困剧作家路易·德·布瓦西（Louis de Boissy）的报道中，两句残酷的话语清晰地揭示了这种普遍模式：“他是一位绅士。他娶了他的洗衣妇。”从其他报道的角度来看，卢梭和狄德罗的婚姻——分别娶了一位半文盲的洗衣女工和一位洗衣妇的女儿——似乎并不罕见。

Liaisons were dangerous for a man of letters because he might marry his mistress, no matter how “bad” the match. D‘Hémery reported that A.-G. Meusnier de Querlon fell in love with a procuress and married her in order to get her out of prison. Before long he had his back to the wall and a family to support. An appointment to the Gazette de France followed by the editorship of the Petites affiches saved him from destitution; but he never accumulated enough to provide for himself in his old age, when he had to be saved once again by a pension granted by a financier. Several other authors lost their hearts in brothels, according to the accounts of their private lives that appeared in d’Hémery’s files. A poet named Milon found himself unable to escape from a passion for the procuress of an establishment at the Carrefour des Quatre Cheminées, where he was a regular customer. The playwright and future journalist Pierre Rousseau lived with the daughter of a prostitute, whom he passed off as his wife. And two other hacks, the compiler F.-H. Turpin and a pamphleteer named Guenet, not only frequented prostitutes but married them. Grub Street marriages occasionally worked out. D’Hémery noted that Louis Anseaume had been living down and out as a part-time teacher until he married the sister of an actress in the Opera Comique—“a marriage that he made from need rather than from inclination.” Two years later he was doing quite well, writing and producing comic operas. But marriage usually dragged an author down. The normal pattern shows up clearly in two, brutal sentences in the report on the indigent playwright Louis de Boissy: “He is a gentleman. He married his laundress.” Seen from the perspective of the other reports, the marriages of Rousseau and Diderot—to a semiliterate laundry maid and to the daughter of a washerwoman, respectively—do not look unusual.

如果作家不能指望靠写作谋生，也不能过上体面的家庭生活，那么写作本身又如何能被视为一种职业呢？文人的尊严和职业的神圣性早已成为启蒙思想家著作中的一个主题^，但 在德·埃梅里的报告中却找不到这样的主题。尽管警察一眼就能认出作家，并通过将他们列入德·埃梅里的档案来区别于其他法国人，但他们并没有像对待职业或社会地位那样对待他们。他们可能是绅士、牧师、律师，也可能是仆人。但他们并不具备任何使他们区别于非作家的特质或条件。

If writers could not expect to live by their pens and to lead respectable family lives, how did writing itself appear as a career? The dignity of men of letters and the sanctity of their calling had already emerged as a leitmotiv in the works of the philosophes, ¹³ but no such theme can be found in d‘Hémery’s reports. Although the police recognized a writer when they saw one and sorted him out from other Frenchmen by giving him a place in d’Hémery’s files, they did not speak of him as if he had a profession or a distinct position in society. He might be a gentleman, a priest, a lawyer, or a lackey. But he did not possess a qualité or condition that set him apart from nonwriters.

正如法语词汇所暗示的那样，德·埃梅里使用的是一种古老的社会词汇，这几乎没有给现代的、自由流动的知识分子留下任何空间。与狄德罗和达朗贝尔相比，他或许显得有些过时，但他的语言可能与十八世纪中期的写作环境相当吻合。由于他尚未形成现代作家的形象——摆脱了庇护者的束缚，融入了文学市场，并投身于写作事业——警方无法将他归入任何传统的作家类别。鉴于围绕着他这种不确定地位的概念模糊性，他究竟拥有怎样的地位呢？

As the French phrases suggest, d‘Hémery used an ancient social vocabulary, which left little room for modern, free-floating intellectuals. He may have been out of date in comparison with Diderot and d’Alembert, but his language probably corresponded pretty well with the conditions of authorship in the mid-eighteenth century. The police could not situate the writer within any conventional category because he had not yet assumed his modern form, freed from protectors, integrated in the literary marketplace, and committed to a career. Given the conceptual cloudiness surrounding this uncertain position, what sort of status did he have?

尽管警方报告并未对这个问题给出明确答案，但其中包含一些颇具启发性的描述。例如，德·埃梅里经常称作家为“男孩” （garçons）。这种称呼与年龄无关。狄德罗在报告中被称作“男孩”，尽管当时他已37岁，已婚并育有一子。雷纳尔神父、洛日修道院神父和皮埃尔·西戈尔涅在30多岁时也被称为“男孩”；路易·曼诺里57岁时也被称作“男孩”。他们与那些被隐含地归类为男性，甚至常常被明确地归类为绅士的作家之间的区别在于，他们缺乏社会地位。无论是记者、教师还是神父，他们在文坛底层都占据着模糊且不稳定的地位。他们进出格拉布街，聚集在上文提到的“知识分子”这一社会职业领域。人们不得不诉诸这种时代错置的说法，因为旧制度下没有像狄德罗这样的人的分类。“男孩”是德·埃梅里所能想到的最好说法。他绝不会想到用这个词来形容圣朗贝尔侯爵——一位军官，在他撰写关于圣朗贝尔的报告时，侯爵只有33岁；也不会用这个词来形容安托万·佩蒂特——一位医生，当时31岁。“男孩”一词暗示着边缘化，用来指代那些无法归类的人，那些现代知识分子的隐晦先驱，他们在警察档案中被列为“无产者”（ gens sans état）。

Although the police reports do not provide a clear answer to that question, they contain some revealing remarks. For example, d‘Hémery often referred to writers as “boys” (garçons). The expression had nothing to do with age. Diderot appeared as a “boy” in his report, although he was then thirty-seven, married, and a father. The abbé Raynal, the abbé de l’Ecluse-des-Loges, and Pierre Sigorgne were all “boys” in their mid-thirties; and Louis Mannory was a “boy” of fifty-seven. What set them apart from writers classified implicitly as men, and often explicitly as gentlemen, was their lack of social distinction. Whether journalists, teachers, or abbés, they occupied vague and shifting positions in the lower ranks of the republic of letters. They moved in and out of Grub Street and clustered in the sector of the socio-occupational spectrum referred to above as the “intellectual trades.” One must fall back on that anachronism because the Old Regime did not have a category for people like Diderot. “Boy” was the best d‘Hémery could do. He would never think of applying such a term to the marquis de Saint-Lambert, a military officer, who was only thirty-three at the writing of d’Hémery’s report on him, or to Antoine Petit, a doctor, who was thirty-one. “Boy” implied marginality and served to place the unplaceable, the shadowy forerunners of the modern intellectual, who showed up in the police files as gens sans état (people without an estate).

德·埃梅里的语言运用不应归因于一位注重身份地位的官僚的特殊习惯；他深受时代偏见的影响。例如，在关于皮埃尔-夏尔·雅梅的报告中，他理所当然地写道：“据说他出身名门”；他还提到，包税人夏尔-艾蒂安·佩塞利耶是一位“有品位的人（galant homme），这对于一位诗人兼金融家来说，评价可谓相当高了。”但德·埃梅里并非势利眼。在关于杜桑·杜桑的报告中，他写道：“他出身并不显赫，因为他是圣保罗教区一位鞋匠的儿子。尽管如此，他仍然是一位值得尊敬的人。”当这些报告贬低作家时，它们与其说是表达德·埃梅里的个人观点，不如说是反映了他所处环境的固有观念。当然，我们很难在这些陈述中清晰地区分个人因素和社会因素。但在某些地方，尤其是在不经意间或随意提及之处，德·埃梅里似乎表达了一些普遍的假设。例如，在谈到雅克·莫拉宾的生平时，他以一种不加修饰的口吻写道：“他很聪明，著有一部两卷本四开本的《西塞龙传》， 并将其献给了圣弗洛朗坦伯爵先生，这位伯爵庇护了他，而他曾担任伯爵的秘书。正是这位伯爵将他介绍给了埃诺先生。” 作家可以像一件物品一样，在不同的庇护者之间辗转。

D‘Hémery’s use of language should not be attributed to the peculiarities of a status-conscious bureaucrat; he shared the prejudices of his time. Thus in the report on Pierre-Charles Jamet, he remarked as a matter of course, “He is said to be from a good family” ; and he noted that Charles-Etienne Pesselier, a tax farmer, was “a man of honor [galant homme], which is saying a lot for a poet and a financier.” But d’Hémery was no snob. In his report on Toussaint, he wrote, “He is hardly well born, since he is the son of a shoemaker in the parish of Saint Paul. He is no less an estimable person for all that.” When the reports disparage writers, they do not seem to express d‘Hémery’s personal views so much as attitudes embedded in his surroundings. Of course, one cannot distinguish clearly between the personal and the social ingredients in such statements. But in some places, especially in off-guard moments or casual asides, d’Hémery seemed to articulate general assumptions. For example, in the histoire of Jacques Morabin, he observed in a matter-of-fact manner, “He is clever and is the author of a book in two volumes in-quarto entitled La Vie de Cicéron, which he dedicated to M. le comte de Saint Florentin, who protects him and for whom he was a secretary. It is this lord who gave him to M. Hénault.” A writer could be passed from one protector to another, like a thing.

此类言论的语气与普通作家所受的待遇相符。伏尔泰被罗昂骑士的仆人痛打一顿，常被视为世纪初作家不被尊重的例证。但即便在百科全书时代，得罪重要人物的作家依然会遭到殴打。颇有名望的老剧作家皮埃尔-夏尔·罗伊险些被克莱蒙伯爵的仆人殴打致死，后者意在报复他在一次有争议的法兰西学院选举中创作的讽刺诗。18世纪40年代，G.-F.普兰·德·圣福瓦因殴打任何嘲笑他戏剧的人而令观众胆战心惊。据说他曾与多位评论家决斗并将其击毙，还威胁要割掉任何批评他的评论家的耳朵。甚至连马蒙泰尔和弗雷龙也卷入了一场斗殴。当 上流社会人士在法兰西喜剧院的门厅里闲逛，马蒙泰尔就弗雷隆在《文学年鉴》上对他发表的讽刺言论向他讨回公道。弗雷隆提议到外面去。两人唇枪舌剑数次后，被分开并移交给法国元帅，后者负责处理荣誉事务。但伊桑基安元帅却认为这是“小事一桩，只配交给警察”，而德·埃梅里的报道也把此事描述为“滑稽可笑”。在德·埃梅里看来，就像在其他人看来一样，作家的荣誉以及作家们像绅士一样捍卫荣誉的场面，都显得十分可笑。

The tone of such remarks corresponded to the treatment that ordinary writers received. The drubbing given Voltaire by the servants of the chevalier de Rohan is often cited as an example of disrespect for authors at the beginning of the century. But writers who offended important personages were still beaten up in the era of the Encyclopédie. Pierre-Charles Roy, a fairly distinguished elderly playwright was nearly killed by a pummeling from a servant of the comte de Clermont, who wanted to exact revenge for a satirical poem written during a disputed election to the Académie Française. G.-F. Poullain de Saint-Foix terrorized audiences throughout the 1740s by bashing anyone who jeered his plays. He was rumored to have dispatched several critics in duels and to have threatened to cut off the ears of any reviewer who panned him. Even Marmontel and Fréron got involved in a brawl. While the beau monde strolled between acts in the foyer of the Comédie française, Marmontel demanded satisfaction for some satirical remarks that Fréron had leveled at him in the Année littéraire. Fréron suggested that they step outside. After crossing swords a few times, they were separated and turned over to the maréchaux de France, who handled affairs of honor. But the maréchal d‘Isenquien dismissed them as “small game, good only for the police,” and the affair appeared in d’Hémery’s reports as “comic.” To d’Hémery as to everyone else, there was something laughable about the notion of a writer’s honor and the spectacle of writers defending it as if they had been gentlemen.

当然，许多作家无需担心受到保护、遭到殴打或沦为笑柄。对他们而言，娶妓女为妻或被称作“小子”是不可想象的；因为他们拥有独立的尊严，身居要职，担任法官、律师或政府官员。但普通作家仍然暴露在残酷的现实世界中，他们的同时代人也不会将他们奉为神明。当启蒙思想家们奠定了现代知识分子崇拜的基础时，警察们则对他们的“工作”表达了一种更为普通、务实的看法。写作或许能为绅士的仕途锦上添花，为平民百姓带来闲职。但它更有可能造就一事无成之辈。德埃梅里对米歇尔·波特朗斯一家深表同情。米歇尔是个才华横溢的年轻人，如果他能放弃对诗歌的爱好，或许就能有所成就：“他是家仆的儿子，他有个叔叔是位教士，叔叔逼他学习，想让他有所作为。但他却全身心投入诗歌，这让叔叔非常失望。”

Of course, many writers did not need to worry about being protected, beaten up, or made into the butt of jokes. It was unthinkable for them to marry prostitutes or to be called “boy”; for they had an independent dignité, an established position as magistrates, lawyers, or government officials. But the common writer remained exposed to the brutalities of a rough-and-tumble world, and his contemporaries did not put him up on a pedestal. While the philosophes laid the foundation of the modern cult of the intellectual, the police expressed a more ordinary, down-to-earth view of their “game.” Writing might embellish the career of a gentleman and lead to a sinecure for a commoner. But it was more likely to produce good-for-nothings. D’Hémery sympathized with the family of Michel Portelance, a bright young man who might make something of himself, if only he could give up his penchant for poetry: “He is the son of a domestic servant, and he has an uncle who is a canon, who made him study and intended to make something of him. But he has given himself over completely to poetry, which has driven the uncle to despair.”

与此同时，德·埃梅里也欣赏才华。在他看来，丰特奈尔是“我们这个世纪最杰出的天才之一”；而伏尔泰“精神上如雄鹰般锐利，但思想上却十分糟糕”。尽管这番话中带着警官的口吻，却也蕴含着敬意。德·埃梅里对孟德斯鸠创作《论法的精神》的困难以及孟德斯鸠本人都给予了相当的同情：“他是一位极其聪明的人，只是视力很差，深受其扰。他创作了许多精彩的作品，例如《波斯人书信集》、《格尼德神庙》以及著名的《论法的精神》。”

At the same time, d‘Hémery admired talent. To him, Fontenelle was “one of the most beautiful geniuses of our century”; and Voltaire was “an eagle in his spirit but a very bad subject in his opinions.” Although the voice of the police inspector could be heard in that remark, it contained a note of respect. D’Hémery gave quite a sympathetic account of Montesquieu’s difficulties with L‘Esprit des lois and of Montesquieu himself: “He is an extremely clever man, terribly troubled with poor eyesight. He has written several charming works, such as the Lettres persanes, Le Temple de Gnide, and the celebrated L’Esprit des lois.”

在路易十四统治时期，这样的言论是不可想象的。当时，沃邦和费内隆因发表较为保守的作品而被逐出宫廷，拉辛为了融入上流社会而放弃写作。在十九世纪，这样的言论也同样不合时宜。巴尔扎克和雨果确立了英雄式的写作风格，左拉则彻底征服了市场。德·埃梅里表达的是作家地位演变过程中的一个过渡阶段。他并不认为写作是一种独立的职业或一种特殊的身份。但他尊重写作这门艺术——并且他深知写作作为一种意识形态力量值得关注。

Such remarks would have been unthinkable under Louis XIV, when Vauban and Fénelon were exiled from court for less-daring publications and when Racine gave up writing in order to take up gentility. Nor would they have been in place in the nineteenth century, when Balzac and Hugo established the heroic style of authorship and Zola consummated the conquest of the marketplace. D’Hémery expressed an in-between stage in the evolution of the writer’s status. He did not think of writing as an independent career or a distinct estate. But he respected it as an art—and he knew it bore watching as an ideological force.

尽管意识形态对德·埃梅里而言并非一个概念，但他每天都会遇到它——并非启蒙思想的自下而上或革命意识的自上而下涌动，而是他在街头巷尾遭遇的一种危险。在多份报告中，“危险”一词均有出现，通常与对可疑人物的描述相关。德·埃梅里使用了一系列分级的形容词：“好对象”（福斯）、“较差的对象”（奥利维耶、费布尔、内尔）、“坏对象”（库尔图瓦、帕尔梅乌斯）和“非常坏的对象”（古尔奈、伏尔泰）——或者“不可疑”（布瓦西）、“可疑”（卡于萨克）和“极其可疑”（吕尔凯）。他似乎斟酌用词，仿佛在衡量每份档案中危险的程度。他的言论语境表明，他将“危险”与“坏人”联系起来，这种联系在旧制度下的警察工作中很常见。帕尔梅乌斯是“危险的坏人”，因为他匿名写信给当权者，诋毁他的敌人。米莱·福克·德·拉·塞佩德也同样危险，因为她伪造了一对恋人的笔迹，使他们卷入其中——这在今天看来或许微不足道，但德·埃梅里却非常重视：“这种才能在社会上非常危险。”在一个个人地位取决于其信誉或名望的体制下，能够败坏他人名声的能力似乎尤其具有威胁性。那些最受信任的人，即“权贵”，一旦失宠，损失也最大。因此，德·埃梅里对那些收集情报以损害高层人士名誉的人格外警惕。因此，P.-C.尼维尔·德·拉·肖塞：“他从未做过任何可疑的事情，但人们不喜欢他，因为他被认为很危险，并且有能力暗中伤害他人。”

Although ideology did not exist as a concept for d‘Hémery, he ran into it every day—not as a downward streaming of Enlightenment or an upward surging of revolutionary consciousness, but as a form of danger that he encountered at street level. The notion of “danger” appears in several reports, usually in connection with remarks on suspicious characters. D’Hémery used a graduated scale of epithets: “good subject” (Fosse), “fairly bad subject” (Olivier, Febre, Néel), “bad subject” (Courtois, Palmeus), and “very bad subject” (Gournay, Voltaire)—or “not suspicious” (Boissy), “suspicious” (Cahusac), and “extremely suspicious” (Lurquet). He seemed to measure his language carefully, as if he were gauging the degree of danger in each dossier. And the context of his remarks suggests that he associated “danger” with “bad subjects” in a way that was peculiar to police work under the Old Regime. Palmeus was “a dangerous, bad subject” because he wrote anonymous letters against his enemies to people in authority. Mile Fauque de la Cépède looked just as bad because she had embroiled two lovers by counterfeiting their handwriting in fake letters—an intrigue that might seem trivial today but that d‘Hémery took seriously: “That talent is very dangerous in society.” The ability to compromise someone seemed especially threatening in a system where individuals rose and fell according to their crédit or reputation. Those most en crédit, the placemen or gens en place, had most to lose by falling from favor. So d’Hémery was especially wary of persons who collected information in order to damage reputations in high places. Thus P.-C. Nivelle de La Chaussée: “He has never done anything suspicious, yet he is not liked because he is considered dangerous and capable of hurting people secretly.”

秘密伤害——这种概念通过诸如nuire和 perdre（伤害、毁灭）之类的动词传递——通常以告密的形式出现，这与保护原则截然相反，后者作为一种制衡力量在整个体系中发挥作用。德·埃梅里所到之处都遭遇了告密。一位名叫库尔图瓦的穷诗人受雇于一位陆军上尉，后者想通过匿名信向警方提供信息，将一名敌人送进监狱。杜布瓦夫人与她的丈夫——一位裁缝店的售货员——发生了激烈的争吵，然后试图通过一封假名信件将他关进巴士底狱，声称她看到他在狂欢节期间向人群朗诵了一首抨击国王的诗歌。一位名叫尼古拉斯·茹安的银行家将他儿子的情妇投入了监狱；儿子以一封匿名信进行报复，信中揭露父亲曾撰写一系列詹森主义小册子，其中包括一篇反对巴黎大主教的小册子，最终将父亲送进了巴士底狱。

Secret hurting—an idea transmitted by verbs such as nuire and perdre (to harm, to ruin)—usually took the form of denunciation, the contrary principle to protection, which operated throughout the system as a countervailing force. D’Hémery encountered denunciations everywhere he went. An impecunious poet named Courtois hired himself out to an army captain, who wanted to put an enemy behind bars by providing information in an anonymous letter to the police. A Mme Dubois quarreled violently with her husband, a sales clerk in a tailor’s shop, and then tried to get him shut up in the Bastille by means of a letter under a false name, saying she had seen him reading a violent poem against the king to a crowd during the Mardi Gras celebrations. A banker, Nicolas Jouin, had his son’s mistress thrown in prison; and the son retaliated with an anonymous letter, which brought the father to the Bastille by revealing that he had written a series of Jansenist tracts, including a pamphlet against the archbishop of Paris.

对这种诽谤行为的监视成了警方的一项全职工作。德·埃梅里对那些涉及普通百姓名誉的案件不予理睬。一位咖啡馆女招待抱怨说，她被抛弃的情人——一位名叫罗杰·德·塞里的诗人——在一本小册子里公开羞辱，他对此置若罔闻。但他却对以下几件事格外关注：法比奥·格拉尔迪尼在一本小册子里诋毁圣塞韦兰伯爵的家谱；皮埃尔-夏尔·雅梅诽谤总审计长及其祖先；以及尼古拉斯·朗格莱·杜·弗雷努瓦，他想出版一部关于摄政时期的历史，其中“充满了对当权家族的强烈抨击”。当家族和裙带关系遭到诽谤时，这便成了国家大事；因为在宫廷政治体系中，个人魅力与原则同等重要，一本精心炮制的小册子就能彻底摧毁一个人的信誉。

The surveillance of this slander was a full-time job for the police. D’Hémery did not bother with cases where reputations of humble people were at stake. He turned a deaf ear to a café waitress who complained about being pilloried in a pamphlet by her jilted lover, a poet named Roger de Sery. But he paid close attention to Fabio Gherardini, who maligned the genealogy of the comte de Saint-Séverin in a pamphlet; to Pierre-Charles Jamet, who defamed the controller general and his ancestors; and to Nicolas Lenglet du Fresnoy, who wanted to publish a history of the Regency, which was “full of very strong things against families in power.” When clans and clientages were slandered, it was an affair of state; for in a system of court politics, personalities counted as much as principles, and personal credit could be sapped by a well-placed pamphlet.

因此，意识形态警察的工作往往是追捕传单作者和压制诽谤——诽谤一旦以印刷品的形式出现，便构成诽谤。德·埃梅里特别注重维护其保护者的名誉——尤其是警察中将尼古拉斯-勒内·贝里耶和宫廷中的达尔让松派系——而报告有时显示，他跟踪作家是奉上级之命行事。例如，在关于路易·德·卡于萨克的报告中，德·埃梅里指出，贝里耶“告诉我，他在法庭上被认为可疑，应该受到严密调查”。卡于萨克并没有撰写革命宣传册。但他看起来像个“危险人物”，因为他辗转于不同的臣民之间——从克莱蒙伯爵到圣弗洛朗坦伯爵，再到金融家拉波普利尼埃——最终出版了一部伪日本小说《格里格里》，其中包含的信息足以毁掉宫廷中许多人的名誉。同样，贝里耶也警告德·埃梅里要提防让-阿·盖尔，盖尔是宫廷马绍派系中的“危险人物”，因为他最近去了荷兰，安排印刷一些“可疑的手稿”。

Thus ideological police work was often a matter of hunting down pamphleteers and suppressing libelles, the form that slander took when it appeared in print. D‘Hémery took special care to protect the reputation of his own protectors—notably the Lieutenant-Général de Police Nicolas-René Berryer and the d’Argenson faction of the court—and the reports sometimes show that in trailing a writer he was acting on orders from his superiors. In the report on Louis de Cahusac, for example, d‘Hémery noted that Berryer had “told me that he was considered suspicious in court and that he should be investigated closely.” Cahusac did not write revolutionary tracts. But he looked like a “bad subject” because he went through a succession of clientages—from the comte de Clermont, to the comte de Saint Florentin, to the financier la Popliniere—and came out with a pseudo-Japanese novel, Grigri, which contained enough information to ruin a great many reputations in court. Similarly, Berryer warned d’Hémery to keep an eye on J.-A. Guer, a “bad subject” in the Machault faction of the court, because he had recently traveled to Holland in order to arrange for the printing of some “suspicious manuscripts.”

在对这类人物的报道中，诸如“可疑的”、“邪恶的”、“危险的”之类的形容词层出不穷。德埃梅里形容L.-C.富热雷·德·蒙布龙尤其“邪恶”，因为他专门从事诽谤活动：

Adjectives like “suspicious,” “bad,” and “dangerous” proliferated in the reports on such characters. D’Hémery described L.-C. Fougeret de Montbron as particularly “bad” because he specialized in libelles:

德·埃梅里认为，他的职责在于维护王国，压制一切可能损害国王权威的事物。那些关于路易十五和蓬帕杜夫人的诽谤小册子，在现代读者看来或许不过是散布谣言，但在他看来却是煽动叛乱。因此，他用最严厉的措辞抨击像尼古拉斯·朗格莱·杜·弗雷努瓦这样的诽谤者——“一个危险人物，企图颠覆王国”；以及那些聚集在杜布莱夫人和维厄梅松夫人沙龙里的小册子作者和议会激进分子——“巴黎最危险的[群体]”。这些团体不仅散布宫廷阴谋和政治八卦，他们还撰写诽谤文章和手稿，炮制最具破坏性的新闻，这些文章和手稿在法国各地“秘密”流传。德·埃梅里的报告中提到了六位这样的“新派记者” 。他非常重视这些消息，因为它们对公众舆论产生了重大影响。他的间谍在咖啡馆、公园，甚至在普通民众中都听到了这些“新闻”的回声，因为消息都是口口相传的。以下是一位间谍对皮丹萨·德·迈罗贝尔（Pidansat de Mairobert）的一次长篇大论的描述。迈罗贝尔是杜布莱沙龙的重要新闻撰稿人，据德·埃梅里（d'Hémery）所说，他是“巴黎最恶毒的嘴炮”：“迈罗贝尔在普罗科普咖啡馆（Café Procope）谈论最近的改革（二十五分之一税）时说，应该派军队的人来铲除整个宫廷，因为他们唯一的乐趣就是摧残平民百姓，作恶多端。”

D‘Hémery’s job, as he understood it, involved the protection of the kingdom by the suppression of anything that could damage the authority of the king. The scurrilous pamphlets about Louis XV and Mme de Pompadour, which may strike a modern reader as little more than rumor mongering, looked like sedition to him. So he reserved his strongest language for libellistes like Nicolas Lenglet du Fresnoy, “a dangerous man, who would overthrow a kingdom,” and for the pamphleteers and parliamentary frondeurs who gathered in the salons of Mme Doublet and Mme Vieuxmaison, “the most dangerous [society] in Paris.” These groups did not merely gossip about court intrigues and politics; they wrote up the most damaging news in libelles and manuscript gazettes, which circulated “under the cloak” everywhere in France. A half dozen of these primitive journalists (nouvellistes) figure in d’Hémery’s reports. He took them seriously because they had a serious effect on public opinion. His spies heard echoes of their “nouvelles” in cafés and public gardens, and even among the common people, where news traveled by word of mouth. Thus a spy’s account of a harangue by Pidansat de Mairobert, a key nouvelliste from the Doublet salon and “the worst tongue in Paris,” according to d’Hémery: “Mairobert said in the café Procope, while talking about the recent reforms [the vingtième tax], that someone from the army ought to wipe out the whole court, whose sole pleasure is to devastate the common people and perpetrate injustice.”

警察特工总是监听煽动性言论（propos），作家们也常常因此被捕入狱。德·埃梅里将这一切都记录在他的档案中，其中经常会出现一些可疑人物，例如：FZ·德·劳贝里维埃，昆索纳骑士，一位从士兵转变为新派作家 的“煽动性言论极其自由”的人；J·-F·德勒·杜·拉迪埃，因“煽动性言论”而被流放；FP·梅林·德·圣伊莱尔，因“发表煽动性言论……反对蓬帕杜夫人”而被送往巴士底狱；以及安托万·布雷，同样因“煽动性言论反对国王和蓬帕杜夫人”而被关押在巴士底狱。有时，人们仿佛能听到那些言论。德·埃梅里关于皮埃尔-马蒂亚斯·德·古尔奈的报告，这位神父、地理学家和“非常糟糕的人”，读起来就像是对当时公共场所弥漫的言论的速记记录：

Police agents were always picking up seditious talk (propos), and writers were often jailed for it. D‘Hémery kept track of it all in his files, where one often runs into suspicious characters like F-Z. de Lauberivières, chevalier de Quinsonas, a soldier turned nouvelliste who was “extremely free in his propos”; J.-F Dreux du Radier, exiled “for propos”; F-P Mellin de Saint-Hilaire, sent to the Bastille “for having made propos ... against Mme de Pompadour”; and Antoine Bret, also in the Bastille for “seditious propos against the king and Mme de Pompadour.” Sometimes one can almost hear the talk. D’Hémery’s report on Pierre-Mathias de Gournay, a priest, geographer, and “very bad subject,” reads like a stenographic account of what was in the air in public places:

当时各种媒体——书籍、小册子、报刊、谣言、诗歌和歌曲——都在抨击国王。因此，在德·埃梅里看来，王国显得十分脆弱。如果最高保护者失去了臣民的忠诚，整个保护体系都可能崩溃。德·埃梅里并未预见到革命的爆发；但在审视当时的文坛时，他发现君主制正变得越来越容易受到敌对舆论的冲击。朝臣们随着权贵的更迭而兴衰更替，小册子作者们不断侵蚀着民众对政权的尊重；危险无处不在——甚至在埃斯特拉帕德广场附近那间破旧的房间里，一个名叫狄德罗的“男孩”正在一本百科全书词典上涂涂写写。

The king was getting a bad press in all the media of the time-in books, pamphlets, gazettes, rumors, poems, and songs. So the kingdom looked rather fragile to d’Hémery. If the supreme protector lost command of his subjects’ loyalty, the whole protection system might collapse. D‘Hémery did not foresee a revolution; but in inspecting the republic of letters, he saw a monarchy that was becoming increasingly vulnerable to hostile waves of public opinion. While courtiers rose and fell through shifting clientages, pamphleteers eroded the respect for the regime among the general public; and danger lurked everywhere—even in the shabby room off the Place de l’Estrapade, where a “boy” named Diderot was scribbling on a dictionnaire encyclopédique.

然而，乍看之下，德·埃梅里将狄德罗与危险联系起来似乎有些奇怪。狄德罗写的不是诽谤文章 ，而是启蒙运动的论著，而启蒙运动在这些报告中也并未被视为一种威胁。事实上，它根本没有出现。德·埃梅里从未使用过“启蒙运动者”和“哲学家”之类的词汇。尽管他收集了几乎所有在1753年之前发表过作品的启蒙思想家的档案，但他并没有将他们视为一个群体；而且他常常给予他们个人良好的评价。他不仅对丰特奈尔、杜克洛和孟德斯鸠等年长的杰出人物给予了应有的尊重，而且还将达朗贝尔描述为“一个魅力十足的人，无论从性格还是智慧上来说都是如此”。在这些报告中，卢梭被描述为一个性格古怪但“才华横溢”、“智慧过人”的人，尤其擅长音乐和文学论战。即使是伏尔泰——“一个非常糟糕的人物”——在德埃梅里笔下也主要以文坛和宫廷中的恶名昭彰者和阴谋家的形象出现。德埃梅里只提到了两个著名的哲学沙龙——杰弗兰夫人沙龙和克雷基侯爵夫人沙龙——而且只是顺带提及，完全忽略了围绕着莱斯皮纳斯先生、德方夫人、坦辛夫人和霍尔巴赫男爵聚集的重要知识分子群体。显然，他没有意识到存在一个哲学圈子，也没有将启蒙运动视为一个连贯的舆论运动，或者根本就没有意识到这一点。在大多数教科书中被视为文化史主流的知识浪潮，在警方的报告中却不见踪影。

On the face of it, however, it seems odd that d‘Hémery should have associated Diderot with danger. Diderot did not write libelles but Enlightenment tracts, and the Enlightenment does not appear as a threatening force in the reports. In fact, it does not appear at all. D’Hémery never used terms like Lumières and philosophe. Although he compiled dossiers on virtually all the philosophes who had published anything by 1753, he did not treat them as a group; and he often gave them a clean bill of health as individuals. Not only did he write respectfully about older, distinguished figures like Fontenelle, Duclos, and Montesquieu; but he also described d‘Alembert as “a charming man, both in his character and in his wit.” Rousseau figures in the reports as a prickly character but a person of “eminent merit” and “great intelligence,” who had a special talent for music and literary polemics. Even Voltaire, “a very bad subject,” appears primarily as a notoriety and intriguer in the world of letters and the court. D’Hémery mentioned only two of the famous philosophic salons—those of Mme Geoffrin and the marquise de Créquy-and he referred to them only in passing, while completely neglecting the important groups of intellectuals who clustered around Mile de Lespinasse, Mme du Deffand, Mme de Tencin, and the baron d’Holbach. Apparently he did not identify a philosophic milieu and did not conceive of the Enlightenment as a coherent movement of opinion, or did not conceive of it at all. The intellectual tide that appears as a mainstream of cultural history in most textbooks does not surface in the police reports.

然而，它确实存在——潜藏在表面之下。与诽谤者和 新派作家不同，狄德罗代表了一种更为阴险的危险：无神论。“他是一个自作聪明、以不敬神为傲的年轻人；非常危险；对神圣的奥秘嗤之以鼻，”德·埃梅里写道。报告解释说，狄德罗在写出《哲学思考》和《不雅的珠宝》等骇人听闻的作品后，因《盲人信》入狱 ，如今正与弗朗索瓦-文森特·图桑和马克-安托万·艾杜斯共同编纂《百科全书辞典》。这些作家在德·埃梅里的档案中都有各自的档案，他们最初的《百科全书》项目的前任戈德弗鲁瓦·塞利乌斯以及资助该项目的书商们也都有各自的档案。他们都显得形迹可疑，过着格拉布街式的生活，这里编纂一些书籍，那里翻译一些译作，中间夹杂着一些色情和亵渎神明的内容。德·埃梅里指出，艾杜斯曾为狄德罗的《不雅珠宝》（Bijoux indiscrets）提供过一些淫秽素材，该书由百科全书出版商之一洛朗·杜兰于1748年秘密出版；而另一位百科全书作者让-巴蒂斯特·德·拉·沙佩尔则为《盲人书》（Lettre sur les aveugles）提供了不敬神明的内容：“他声称狄德罗是从他那里抄袭了桑德森的谈话，而这正是《盲人书》中对宗教最强烈的批判。”

It is there, however—below the surface. Unlike the libellistes and nouvellistes, Diderot represented an insidious variety of danger: atheism. “He is a young man who plays the wit and prides himself on his impiety; very dangerous; speaks of the holy mysteries with scorn,” d‘Hémery noted. The report explained that after having written such horrors as Les Pensées philosophiques and Les Bijoux indiscrets, Diderot had gone to prison for the Lettre sur les aveugles and now was working on the dictionnaire encyclopédique with François- Vincent Toussaint and Marc-Antoine Eidous. Those writers had dossiers of their own in d’Hémery’s files, and so did their predecessor in the original Encyclopédie enterprise, Godefroy Sellius, as well as the booksellers who financed it. They all appeared as dubious characters, who lived in Grub Street fashion, turning out a compilation here and a translation there, with bits of pornography and irreligion in between. Thus d’Hémery noted that Eidous had furnished some of the salacious material for Diderot’s Bijoux indiscrets, which one of the Encyclopédie publishers, Laurent Durand, had put out clandestinely in 1748, while another Encyclopedist, Jean-Baptiste de la Chapelle, had supplied impieties for the Lettre sur les aveugles: “He pretends that Diderot took the conversation of Saunderson from him, which is the strongest thing against religion in the Lettre sur les aveugles.”

报告中的交叉引用无疑让人觉得狄德罗结交了损友，而这些损友也给《百科全书》蒙上了污点，尤其是在狄德罗的一位合作者，让-马丁·德·普拉德神父，因异端邪说被驱逐出法国之后。1752年初，就在《百科全书》第二卷即将出版之际，索邦大学的教授们发现，德·普拉德最近在他们神学院成功答辩的论文中充斥着不敬之词。在正统的殿堂里发现哲学上的腐朽——更不用说松懈的考试程序——已经够令人痛心了，但德·普拉德似乎还把他在《初步论述》中的文本直接搬到了《 百科全书》里。他甚至还向狄德罗提供了神学问题的副本，并与另外两位合作者，伊冯神父和佩斯特雷神父，同住一间房间。此外，三位神甫百科全书学家与神甫哲学家有联系：神甫埃德梅·马莱特，《百科全书》的另一位撰稿人；纪尧姆-托马斯-弗朗索瓦·雷纳尔神父，后来因直言不讳的《 欧洲与印度的商业与哲学与政治史》一书的作者而臭名昭著；纪尧姆-亚历山大·梅希甘神父后来成为《百科全书》杂志 的编辑，并于 1752 年前往巴士底狱创作《琐罗亚斯德经》，德赫梅里将其描述为“对宗教的残暴诽谤，他将其献给了杜桑先生”。德普拉德和伊冯只是逃离法国才避免了同样的命运，但他们并没有与以前的同伙失去联系。德赫梅里注意到，伊冯在荷兰的避难所里继续为《百科全书》撰稿，而佩斯特雷正在校对一本为德·普拉德辩护的小册子的校样，德·普拉德已与腓特烈二世一起安全地定居在普鲁士。

The cross references in the reports certainly made it look as though Diderot kept bad company, and the company reflected badly on the Encyclopédie, especially after one of Diderot’s collaborators, the abbé Jean-Martin de Prades, was run out of France for heresy. In early 1752, just as the second volume of the Encyclopédie was being published, the professors of the Sorbonne discovered impi.eties scattered throughout the thesis that de Prades had recently defended successfully for a licenciate in their own faculty of theology. It was distressing enough to find philosophical rot—not to mention lax examination procedures—in the temple of orthodoxy, but de Prades seemed to take his text from the Discours préliminaire to the Encyclopédie. He actually supplied Diderot with copy on theological questions and shared rooms with two other collaborators, the abbés Yvon and Pestré. Moreover, the trio of abbé-Encyclopedists had ties with abbé-philosophes: the abbé Edme Mallet, another contributor to the Encyclopédie; the abbé Guillaume-Thomas-Francois Raynal, later notorious as the author of the outspoken Histoire philosophique et politique des établissements et du commerce des Européens dans les deux Indes; and the abbé Guillaume-Alexandre Méhégan, who later became an editor of the Journal encyclopédique and went to the Bastille in 1752 for his Zoroastre, which d‘Hémery described as “an atrocious libelle against religion, which he dedicated to M. Toussaint.” De Prades and Yvon escaped the same fate only by fleeing from France, but they did not lose contact with their former associates. D’Hémery noted that Yvon continued to write for the Encyclopédie from his place of refuge in Holland and that Pestré was correcting proofs for a pamphlet vindicating de Prades, who had settled safely with Frederick II in Prussia.

异端神父和隐居无神论者的结合，使《 百科全书》显得可疑；但与后来的评论者，例如巴鲁埃尔神父不同，德·埃梅里并未察觉其背后存在任何阴谋。他显然也没有特别努力去追踪撰稿人。在他的报告中只出现了22位撰稿人——不到1765年（该书最终卷出版之时）所有至少撰写过一篇文章的撰稿人总数的10%。在1748年至1753年间，这本书尚未成为当局的眼中钉，也未成为读者心中启蒙运动的象征。它当时仍是一项合法的事业，受到德·埃梅里的上司，图书贸易总监拉莫尼翁·德·马勒塞尔布的保护，并献给陆军部长阿尔让松伯爵。因此，德·埃梅里并没有将其视为严重的意识形态威胁，尽管他一直关注着其作者的核心成员。

The combination of heretical abbés and garret atheists made the Encyclopédie look suspicious; but unlike subsequent commentators, such as the abbé Barruel, d‘Hémery did not detect any conspiracy behind it. He apparently made no special effort to track down its contributors. Only twenty-two of them appear in his reports—less than 10 percent of all those who had written at least one article by 1765, when the final volumes of the text were published. Between 1748 and 1753, the book had not yet become anathema to the authorities and a symbol of the Enlightenment to the reading public. It was still a legal enterprise, protected by d’Hémery’s superior, Lamoignon de Malesherbes, the Director of the Book Trade, and dedicated to the comte d‘Argenson, Minister of War. So d’Hémery did not treat it as a serious ideological threat, although he kept an eye on the original nucleus of its authors.

但他确实看到了狄德罗身上的危险——并非因为百科全书主义（ 这一概念在报告中并未出现），而是因为狄德罗助长了一股似乎在巴黎四处蔓延的自由思想潮流。德埃梅里特别注意到，据报道狄德罗曾嘲讽圣礼：“他说，当他走到生命尽头时，他会忏悔并领受他们所谓的上帝，但这并非出于任何义务；仅仅是出于对家人的尊重，以免他们因他死时没有宗教信仰而受到责备。”德埃梅里认为，令人担忧的是，许多其他作家也持有这种态度。其中一些人在报告中被冠以 “自由思想家”（ libertin）的称号：例如L.-J.-C. 苏拉斯·达兰瓦尔、路易-马蒂厄·贝尔坦·德·弗拉托和路易-尼古拉·盖鲁。德埃梅里发掘出一些科普作家，例如皮埃尔·埃斯特夫，他撰写了一篇关于宇宙起源的唯物主义论著；还有一些历史学家，例如弗朗索瓦·图尔本，他将一部英国史改写成了一部对宗教的全面控诉；以及一大批不敬神明的诗人——不仅包括伏尔泰和皮龙这样声名显赫的浪荡子，还包括一些默默无闻的诗人，例如L.-F. 德利尔·德·拉·德雷维蒂埃、J.-B. 拉·科斯特、奥赞神父、洛热里神父，以及一位名叫奥利维耶的职员。德埃梅里知道这些人手稿箱里保存着什么，也知道他们正在创作什么：洛热里刚刚完成了一封“反对宗教的信”，而德利尔正在创作一首“抨击宗教的诗”。德·埃梅里从沙龙和咖啡馆的传闻中得知，马耶布瓦伯爵曾在一次晚宴上朗诵了一首关于耶稣基督和施洗约翰的淫秽诗歌，梅埃根神父公开宣扬自然神论，而塞萨尔·谢诺·杜·马尔赛则是一位彻头彻尾的无神论者。对宗教的监视是警务工作的重要组成部分，对德·埃梅里而言，这似乎关乎衡量日益高涨的无神论浪潮。

But he did see danger in Diderot—not because of Encyclopédisme, a concept that does not appear in the reports, but because Diderot contributed to a current of free thinking that seemed to be flowing everywhere in Paris. D‘Hémery took special note of the fact that Diderot was reported to mock the sacraments: “He said that when he gets to the end of his life, he will confess and receive [in communion] what they call God, but not from any obligation; merely out of regard for his family, so that they will not be reproached with the fact that he died without religion.” The distressing thing, as d’Hémery saw it, was that plenty of other writers shared that attitude. Several of them appear in the reports with the epithet libertin (freethinker) attached to their names: thus L.-J.-C. Soulas d‘Allainval, Louis-Mathieu Bertin de Frateaux, and Louis-Nicolas Guéroult. D’Hémery turned up popularizers of science, like Pierre Estève, who wrote a materialist tract on the origins of the universe; historians like François Turben, who transformed a history of England into a general indictment of religion; and a whole flock of impious poets—not merely well-known libertins like Voltaire and Piron, but obscure versifiers like L.-F. Delisle de la Drevetière, J.-B. La Coste, an abbé Ozanne, an abbé Lorgerie, and a clerk named Olivier. D‘Hémery knew what manuscripts these men kept in their portfolios and what they were currently writing: Lorgerie had just completed “an epistle against religion,” and Delisle was working on “a poem in which religion is mistreated.” As he received reports on what was being said in salons and cafés, d’Hémery also knew that the comte de Maillebois had recited an obscene poem about Jesus Christ and John the Baptist at a dinner party, that the abbé Méhégan openly preached deism, and that César Chesneau Du Marsais was an outright atheist. Surveillance of religion was an important part of police work, and for d’Hémery it seemed to be a matter of measuring a rising tide of irreligion.

这种警务行动是如何进行的，以及它为何如此重要，我们可以用最后一个例子来说明：雅克·勒布朗（Jacques le Blanc）的案情报告。勒布朗是一位默默无闻的神父，他在凡尔赛宫的一间房间里撰写反宗教的小册子。完成一篇题为《那些奠定宗教主要格言的偏见之墓》（Le Tombeau des préjugés sur lesquels se fondent les principales maximes de la religion）的论文后，勒布朗开始寻找出版商。他遇到了一个名叫瓦伦丁（Valentin）的人，此人自称熟悉巴黎的出版业，并主动提出担任他的经纪人。然而，在阅读了勒布朗手稿的概要后，瓦伦丁确信，如果向巴黎大主教告发勒布朗，就能获得更高的报酬。大主教派他去警察局，指示他设下陷阱，当场抓获这位神父。瓦伦丁和德·埃梅里（d'Hémery）在巴黎波瓦索尼埃街（rue Poissonière）的一家餐馆里策划了一场虚假的会面。于是，瓦伦丁吩咐勒布朗乔装打扮，以免被人认出，并带上那份手稿，因为有两个书商急于购买。这位神父脱下神职长袍，换上一套旧黑西装，戴上一顶古老的假发。根据德·埃梅里颇为同情的描述，他打扮得像个落魄的强盗，准时到达。瓦伦丁把他介绍给了那两个书商，而他们实际上是乔装打扮的警察。就在他们即将完成交易时，德·埃梅里突然出现，夺走了手稿，把勒布朗押往巴士底狱。这场伪装戏原本可以写成一个滑稽的故事，但在德·埃梅里的叙述中，却显得悲惨而严肃。瓦伦丁成了一个卑鄙的冒险家，勒布朗成了一个受蒙蔽的受害者，而那份手稿则成了罪恶的产物。德·埃梅里将他的观点总结如下：圣经是一部童话故事集；基督的神迹是寓言，用来欺骗轻信之人；基督教、犹太教和伊斯兰教同样是错误的；所有证明上帝存在的证据都是“出于政治目的而捏造的”荒谬之谈。这一事件的政治含义对德·埃梅里来说似乎尤为重要：“在他的手稿底部写着‘写于太阳之城’，也就是他写作时居住的凡尔赛；‘写于伪君子的后宫’，也就是他所在的修道院。”

How this policing took place and why it was important can be illustrated by a final example, the report on Jacques le Blanc, an obscure abbé who wrote antireligious tracts from a room in Versailles. After completing a treatise entitled Le Tombeau des préjugés sur lesquels se fondent les principales maximes de la religion, le Blanc began to look for a publisher. He ran into a man called Valentin, who claimed to know his way around the Parisian book industry and offered to act as his agent. But a reading of a synopsis of the manuscript convinced Valentin that he could make more money by denouncing le Blanc to the archbishop of Paris in return for a reward. The archbishop sent him to the police with instructions to set a trap to catch the abbé en flagrant délit. Valentin and d‘Hémery concocted a fake rendez-vous in an eating house at the rue Poissonière in Paris. Then Valentin instructed le Blanc to come in disguise, so he would not be recognized, and to bring the manuscript, because two booksellers were eager to buy it. The abbé changed his clerical gown for an old black suit and an ancient wig. Looking like a down-at-the-heels highwayman, according to d’Hémery’s rather sympathetic account, he arrived at the appointed time. Valentin introduced him to the booksellers, who were actually policemen in disguise. Then, just as they were about to close the deal, d‘Hémery swooped in, gathered up the manuscript, and hauled le Blanc off to the Bastille. The masquerade could have made an amusing histoire, but it appears sad and serious in D’Hémery’s narrative. Valentin is a nasty adventurer, le Blanc a misguided victim, and the manuscript a work of iniquity. D‘Hémery summarized its propositions as follows: the Bible is a collection of fairy tales; the miracles of Christ are fables, used to dupe the credulous; Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are equally false; and all proofs of the existence of God are absurdities “invented for political reasons.” The political implications of the episode seemed especially important to d’Hémery: “At the bottom of his manuscript is written, ‘Done in the city of the sun,’ which is Versailles, where he lived when he wrote it, ‘in the harem of hypocrites,’ which is his monastery.”

德埃梅里并未将不敬神明与政治割裂开来。尽管他对神学论证不感兴趣，但他认为无神论会削弱王权。因此，归根结底，放荡不羁之徒与诽谤者构成同样的威胁，警方必须识别这两种形式的危险：无论是人身攻击式的诽谤，还是从哲人阁楼里通过舆论传播的谣言。

D’Hémery did not separate impiety from politics. Although he had no interest in theological arguments, he believed that atheism undercut the authority of the crown. Ultimately, then, libertins constituted the same threat as libelles, and the police needed to recognize danger in both forms, whether it struck below the belt as personal defamation or spread through the atmosphere from the garrets of philosophes.

因此，在警方的档案中，狄德罗被视为危险的化身：“他是个非常聪明的男孩，但极其危险。” 结合其他五百份报告来看，他似乎也符合某种模式。像许多其他作家一样，他是一位中年男性，出生于巴黎郊外一座小城里一个受过教育的工匠家庭。他娶了一位出身同样卑微的女子，曾在文森监狱服刑三个月，并在格拉布街待过很长时间。当然，在这些报告中还可以看到许多其他模式。任何社会学公式都无法全面解释所有这些模式，因为文坛是一个模糊的精神领域；作家们分散在社会各处，没有清晰的职业身份。尽管如此，德·埃梅里在识别狄德罗的过程中，指出了旧制度中的一个关键因素，一个尤其需要警方密切关注的因素。通过观察警察如何监视狄德罗等人，人们可以看到知识分子模糊的身影逐渐显现，并成为早期现代法国一股不可忽视的力量^。15

Diderot therefore appears as the incarnation of danger in the files of the police: “He is a very clever boy but extremely dangerous.” Seen in the light of five hundred other reports, he also seems to fit into a pattern. Like many other writers, he was a male, in early middle age, born to a family of educated artisans in a small city outside Paris. He had married a woman of equally humble origins, and he had spent three months in the prison of Vincennes as well as a great deal of time in Grub Street. Of course, many other patterns can be seen in the reports. No sociological formula will do justice to them all, for the republic of letters was a vague, spiritual territory; and authors remained scattered through society, without a clear professional identity. Nonetheless, in identifying Diderot, d’Hémery distinguished a critical element in the Old Regime and one that especially needed watching from the perspective of the police. By watching the police watch the likes of Diderot, one can see the dim figure of the intellectual take on a perceptible shape and emerge as a force to be reckoned with in early modern France.¹⁵

1749年。

The year 1749.

著有反对宗教和良好道德的书籍。

Author of books against religion and good morals.

丹尼斯·狄德罗，朗格勒人，现居巴黎的作家。

Denis Diderot, native of Langres, author living in Paris.

1749 年 7 月 24 日被关进文森城堡的地牢；8 月 21 日下令将​​其从地牢释放，并将城堡作为监狱。

Entered the dungeon of Vincennes on 24 July, 1749; released from the dungeon and given the castle as prison by an order of 21 August.

同年11月3日离开。

Left on 3 November of the same year.

因为他写了一部题为以下作品：

For having written a work entitled:

Lettre sur les aveugles a l'usage de ceux qui voient clair [以及] Les Bijoux indiscrets、Pensées philosophiques、Les Moeurs、Le Sceptique ou I' allée des idées、L' Oiseau blanc、conte bleu等。

Lettre sur les aveugles a l’usage de ceux qui voient clair [and also] Les Bijoux indiscrets, Pensées philosophiques, Les Moeurs, Le Sceptique ou I’ allée des idées, L’ Oiseau blanc, conte bleu, etc.

他是个自作聪明、以不敬神明为傲的年轻人，非常危险，对神圣的奥秘嗤之以鼻。他说，等他走到生命的尽头，他会忏悔并领受他们所谓的“上帝”，但这并非出于任何义务，仅仅是出于对家人的尊重，以免他们因他死时没有信仰而受到责备。

He is a young man who plays the wit and prides himself on his impiety; very dangerous; speaks of the holy mysteries with scorn. He said that when he gets to the end of his life, he will confess and receive [in communion] what they call God, but not from any obligation; merely out of regard for his family, so that they will not be reproached with the fact that he died without religion.

有人可能会回答说两者兼而有之，并将这个问题斥为“ 提问不当”。但《百科全书》中信息与意识形态的关系引发了一些关于知识与权力之间联系的普遍性问题。例如，不妨考虑一下另一种截然不同的学术著作——博尔赫斯构想的、福柯在《物之秩序》中讨论过的中国百科全书。它将动物分为以下几类：“（a）皇帝的，（b）防腐的，（c）驯养的，（d）乳猪，（e）海妖，（f）传说中的，（g）流浪狗，（h）包含在本分类中，（i）狂暴的，（j）数不胜数的，（k）用极细的骆驼毛笔画的，（1）等等，（m）刚刚打碎水罐的，（n）从远处看像苍蝇的。” ²福柯认为，这种分类体系之所以意义重大，正是因为它根本无法被思考。它让我们直面一套难以想象的范畴，从而暴露了我们分类方式的任意性。我们根据那些理所当然的范畴来构建世界秩序，仅仅因为它们是既定的。它们占据着先于思考的认识论空间，因此拥有非凡的持久性。然而，当我们面对一种陌生的经验组织方式时，我们会感受到自身范畴的脆弱，一切都岌岌可危。事物之所以能够维系，仅仅是因为它们可以被纳入一个不容置疑的分类体系。我们会毫不犹豫地将北京犬和大丹犬归为“狗”这一类，即使北京犬似乎更像猫，大丹犬更像小马。如果我们停下来思考“狗性”的定义，或者思考其他用于分类生活的范畴，我们就无法继续生活下去。

One could answer that it was both and dismiss the problem as a question mal posée. But the relation between information and ideology in the Encyclopédie raises some general issues about the connection between knowledge and power. Consider, for example, a totally different kind of learned book, the Chinese encyclopedia imagined by Jorge Luis Borges and discussed by Michel Foucault in The Order of Things. It divided animals into: “(a) belonging to the Emperor, (b) embalmed, (c) tame, (d) sucking pigs, (e) sirens, (f) fabulous, (g) stray dogs, (h) included in the present classification, (i) frenzied, (j) innumerable, (k) drawn with a very fine camelhair brush, (1) et cetera, (m) having just broken the water pitcher, (n) that from a long way off look like flies.”² This classification system is significant, Foucault argues, because of the sheer impossibility of thinking it. By bringing us up short against an inconceivable set of categories, it exposes the arbitrariness of the way we sort things out. We order the world according to categories that we take for granted simply because they are given. They occupy an epistemological space that is prior to thought, and so they have extraordinary staying power. When confronted with an alien way of organizing experience, however, we sense the frailty of our own categories, and everything threatens to come undone. Things hold together only because they can be slotted into a classificatory scheme that remains unquestioned. We classify a Pekinese and a Great Dane together as dogs without hesitating, even though the Pekinese might seem to have more in common with a cat and the Great Dane with a pony. If we stopped to reflect on definitions of “dogness” or on the other categories for sorting out life, we could never get on with the business of living.

因此，归类是一种权力运作。一个被归入三艺而非四艺，或被归入“软科学”而非“硬科学”的学科，可能会逐渐衰落。一本被错放的书可能会永远消失。一个被定义为非人的敌人可能会被消灭。所有社会行为都遵循着由分类体系所界定的边界，无论这些边界是否像图书馆目录、组织结构图和大学院系那样清晰明确。所有动物的生命都符合一种无意识的本体论框架。“象人”和“狼孩”之类的怪物之所以让我们感到恐惧和着迷，是因为它们突破了我们概念的边界；而^某些生物之所以让我们感到毛骨悚然，是因为它们游走于各种类别之间：比如在海里游弋、在陆地上爬行的“黏糊糊”的爬行动物，以及生活在房屋里却又无法被驯化的“讨厌”的啮齿动物。我们称呼某人为老鼠而不是松鼠，就是一种侮辱。 “松鼠”有时可以是一个昵称，比如在《玩偶之家》中，海尔默就用这个昵称称呼娜拉。然而，松鼠是啮齿动物，和老鼠一样危险且携带疾病。它们之所以看起来不那么可怕，是因为它们毫无疑问地属于户外。正是这些介于两者之间的动物，既非鱼类也非鸟类，才拥有特殊的力量，因而具有仪式价值：例如，新几内亚神秘教派中的食火鸡，以及西方女巫魔药中的雄猫。毛发、指甲屑和粪便也会被用于魔法药剂，因为它们代表了身体中模糊的边界区域，在那里，有机体溢出到周围的物质世界。所有的边界都是危险的。如果疏于守护，它们可能会崩溃，我们的分类可能会瓦解，我们的世界将陷入混乱^。4

Pigeon-holing is therefore an exercise in power. A subject relegated to the trivium rather than the quadrivium, or to the “soft” rather than the “hard” sciences, may wither on the vine. A misshelved book may disappear forever. An enemy defined as less than human may be annihilated. All social action flows through boundaries determined by classification schemes, whether or not they are elaborated as explicitly as library catalogues, organization charts, and university departments. All animal life fits into the grid of an unconscious ontology. Monsters like the “elephant man” and the “wolf boy” horrify and fascinate us because they violate our conceptual boundaries,³ and certain creatures make our skin crawl because they slip in between categories: “slimy” reptiles that swim in the sea and creep on the land, “nasty” rodents that live in houses yet remain outside the bounds of domestication. We insult someone by calling him a rat rather than a squirrel. “Squirrel” can be a term of endearment, as in Helmer’s epithet for Nora in A Doll’s House. Yet squirrels are rodents, as dangerous and disease-ridden as rats. They seem less threatening because they belong unambiguously to the out-of-doors. It is the in-between animals, the neither-fish-nor-fowl, that have special powers and therefore ritual value: thus the cassowaries in the mystery cults of New Guinea and the tomcats in the witches’ brews of the West. Hair, fingernail parings, and feces also go into magic potions because they represent the ambiguous border areas of the body, where the organism spills over into the surrounding material world. All borders are dangerous. If left unguarded, they could break down, our categories could collapse, and our world dissolve in chaos.⁴

因此，建立和维护知识分类是一件严肃的事情。试图重新划分知识世界边界的哲学家无异于触碰禁忌。即便他避开了神圣的领域，也无法避免危险；因为知识本身就具有模糊性。它如同爬行动物和老鼠一般，可以从一个类别滑入另一个类别。它具有危险性。因此，狄德罗和达朗贝尔在打破旧有的知识秩序、重新划分已知与未知界限时，承担了巨大的风险。

Setting up categories and policing them is therefore a serious business. A philosopher who attempted to redraw the boundaries of the world of knowledge would be tampering with the taboo. Even if he steered clear of sacred subjects, he could not avoid danger; for knowledge is inherently ambiguous. Like reptiles and rats, it can slip from one category to another. It has bite. Thus Diderot and d’Alembert took enormous risks when they undid the old order of knowledge and drew new lines between the known and the unknown.

当然，自亚里士多德时代以来，哲学家们就一直在重新排列知识体系。在中世纪和文艺复兴时期，重新排列三艺（文科和四艺）、自由艺术和机械艺术、人文学科以及古代课程的所有分支，是图式构建者和综合者们热衷的游戏。关于知识排序的“方法”和正确“布局”的争论，在十六世纪震撼了整个学术界。由此产生了一种将知识压缩成图式的倾向，通常是印刷图表，这些图表根据拉穆斯逻辑的原则来阐释学科的分支和分野。因此，一种图式化的冲动——一种将知识片段绘制、勾勒和空间化的倾向——构成了从拉穆斯到培根、阿尔斯特德、科梅纽斯、莱布尼茨、钱伯斯、狄德罗和达朗贝尔的百科全书式思潮的根基。⁵但狄德罗《百科全书》开篇的图表——源自培根和钱伯斯的著名知识之树——代表了一种全新且大胆的理念。它并非展示如何在既定的框架内调整学科，而是试图在已知与未知之间划出一条界限，从而将人们奉为神圣的大部分内容从学术世界中剔除。通过考察启蒙思想家们如何精心修剪他们从前人那里继承的知识之树，我们就能更清晰地理解启蒙运动时期百科全书式著作的意义所在。

Of course, philosophers had rearranged mental furniture since the time of Aristotle. Reordering the trivium and quadrivium, the liberal and mechanical arts, the studia humanitatis and all the branches of the ancient curriculum was a favorite game for schematizers and synthesizers during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The debate about “method” and correct “disposition” in the ordering of knowledge shook the entire republic of letters in the sixteenth century. Out of it emerged a tendency to compress knowledge into schemata, usually typographical diagrams, which illustrated the branches and bifurcations of disciplines according to the principles of Ramist logic. Thus a diagrammatic impulse—a tendency to map, outline, and spatialize segments of knowledge-underlay the strain of encyclopedism that stretched from Ramus to Bacon, Alsted, Comenius, Leibniz, Chambers, Diderot, and d’Alembert. ⁵ But the diagram at the head of Diderot’s Encyclopédie, the famous tree of knowledge derived from Bacon and Chambers, represented something new and audacious. Instead of showing how disciplines could be shifted within an established pattern, it expressed an attempt to raise a boundary between the known and the unknowable in such a way as to eliminate most of what men held to be sacred from the world of learning. By following the philosophes in their elaborate attempts to trim the tree of knowledge that they had inherited from their predecessors, one can form a clearer idea of how much was at stake in the Enlightenment version of encyclopedism.

狄德罗和达朗贝尔将他们的工作描述为一部百科全书，或对“人类知识的秩序与关联”的系统性阐述， 而非仅仅是另一部词典或按字母顺序排列的信息汇编，以此提醒读者，他们所从事的工作远比拉米式的涂鸦更为重要。狄德罗在《纲要》中解释说， “百科全书”（encyclopedia）一词^源于希腊语中表示“圆”的词，意为“科学的关联（enchaînement）”。从象征意义上讲，它表达了一个知识世界的概念，百科全书编纂者可以环游并绘制出这个世界的地图。“世界^地图”（Mappemonde）是他们描述其工作时的一个关键隐喻。更为重要的是知识之树的隐喻，它传达了知识尽管枝繁叶茂，却最终成长为一个有机整体的理念。狄德罗和达朗贝尔在关键之处巧妙地运用了这些隐喻。因此，在解释百科全书和词典的区别时，达朗贝尔将《百科全书》描述为：

Diderot and d‘Alembert alerted the reader to the fact that they were engaged in something more momentous than Ramist doodling by describing their work as an encyclopedia, or systematic account of “the order and concatenation of human knowledge,”⁶ and not merely as just another dictionary, or compendium of information arranged according to the innocent order of the alphabet. The word encyclopedia, Diderot explained in the Prospectus, derived from the Greek term for circle, signifying “concatenation [enchaînement] of the sciences.”⁷ Figuratively, it expressed the notion of a world of knowledge, which the Encyclopedists could circumnavigate and map. “Mappemonde” was a crucial metaphor in their description of their work. Still more important was the metaphor of the tree of knowledge, which communicated the idea that knowledge grew into an organic whole, despite the diversity of its branches. Diderot and d’Alembert mixed the metaphors at key points. Thus in explaining the difference between an encyclopedia and a dictionary, d’Alembert described the Encyclopédie as:

隐喻的混杂暗示了范畴混淆所带来的不安效应。百科全书派试图为世界强加一种新的秩序，这本身就让他们意识到一切秩序都带有任意性。一位哲学家与另一位哲学家结合的成果，也可能被推翻。因此，《百科全书》或许无法比托马斯·阿奎那的《神学大全》更持久地确立知识。即便在《百科全书》提出最激进的主张，试图推翻旧有的综合理论时，其语言中仍然流露出某种认识论上的焦虑。

The mixing of metaphors suggested the unsettling effect of conflating categories. The very attempt to impose a new order on the world made the Encyclopedists conscious of the arbitrariness in all ordering. What one philosopher had joined another could undo. So the Encyclopédie might not fix knowledge more permanently than the Summa of Thomas Aquinas had done. Something like epistemological Angst showed through the language of the Prospectus, even when it advanced its most aggressive claims to make the older syntheses obsolete:

如果百科全书式的知识树只是无数种可能知识树中的一种，如果任何地图都无法确定知识那变幻莫测的形态，那么狄德罗和达朗贝尔又怎能指望建立“真正的哲学体系”呢？本质上，是因为他们认为自己可以限定可知的领域，并确定真理的某种有限性。真正的哲学教导我们谦逊。它表明，我们所能了解的，仅限于感官和反思所能获得的。洛克使培根开创的事业成为可能，而培根的开端正是勾勒出一棵知识之树。因此，洛克版本的培根之树可以作为现代《人类已知一切知识的总纲》的蓝本。

If the encyclopedic tree was but one of an infinite number of possible trees, if no map could fix the indeterminate typography of knowledge, how could Diderot and d’Alembert hope to establish the “true institutions of philosophy”? Essentially because they thought they could limit the domain of the knowable and pin down a modest variety of truth. True philosophy taught modesty. It demonstrated that we can know nothing beyond what comes to us from sensation and reflection. Locke made feasible what Bacon had begun, and Bacon had begun by sketching a tree of knowledge. Thus a Lockean version of Bacon’s tree could serve as a model for the modern Summa of everything known to man.

狄德罗和达朗贝尔本可以从系统知识的象征森林中挑选出其他树木。波菲利和雷蒙·卢尔早于培根，霍布斯则继承了他的衣钵。更重要的是，一棵发育完全的树就矗立在埃弗雷姆·钱伯斯的《百科全书》的开篇，而狄德罗和达朗贝尔正是以此为主要参考资料。他们不仅以翻译钱伯斯的著作为起点，而且他们的百科全书理念也源于此。狄德罗在《 百科全书概论》中坦诚地承认了他们受到的影响：

Diderot and d‘Alembert could have picked out other trees in the forest of symbols of systematic knowledge. Porphyry and Raymond Lull had anticipated Bacon, and Hobbes had succeeded him. More to the point, a fully developed tree stood at the beginning of Ephraim Chambers’s Cyclopaedia, which Diderot and d’Alembert took as their main source. Not only did they begin their work as a translation of his, they derived their conception of an encyclopedia from him. Diderot acknowledged their debt freely in the Prospectus:

与培根一样，钱伯斯将知识的划分比作树枝，他认为这树枝源于心灵的三大主要能力：记忆，历史知识的源泉；想象力，诗歌的源泉；以及理性，哲学的源泉。然而，当他用图表描绘这棵树时，这些能力的概念便消失了。图表仅仅展示了知识如何分枝繁茂地生长成47门艺术和科学。例如，神学就是从“知识”这棵主干上生长出来的，其方式如下：¹²

Like Bacon, Chambers represented the divisions of knowledge as branches of a tree, which he derived from the three principal faculties of the mind: memory, the source of historical knowledge; imagination, the source of poetry; and reason, the source of philosophy. The faculties disappeared, however, when he depicted the tree in a diagram. The diagram merely showed how knowledge branched and twigged into a luxuriant foliage of forty-seven arts and sciences. Theology, for example, grew out of the main trunk, “knowledge,” in the following manner:¹²

这种神学图景会受到百科全书派的青睐吗？即便它未能将神学奉为科学之王，也至少将其置于一系列分支的顶端，这些分支以老式的拉米主义方式用图表形式呈现。此外，分配给神学的文章数量也超过了其他任何学科，读者只需查阅每个科学分支的注释便可知晓。诚然，像狄德罗这样的自由思想家或许会欢迎这样一套体系，因为它似乎将神学从理性思维和“科学”思维分支中推导而出。然而，被标记为“理性”的枝干却分出了四个子分支，这些子分支赋予了狄德罗想要贬低的科学——形而上学和宗教——与他想要提升的科学——数学和物理学——同等的地位。更糟糕的是，这棵树上竟然没有哲学本身的分支。神圣与世俗在其所有分支中交织在一起。在一片混乱之中，一个至关重要的、培根式的观点被忽略了：艺术和科学似乎是相互滋生的，而非源于思维的运作。狄德罗和达朗贝尔想要将知识根植于认识论；因此，他们放弃了直接的理论来源——钱伯斯，转而回归培根。

Was such a picture of theology likely to find favor among the Encyclopedists? If it did not quite make her the queen of the sciences, it placed theology at the crowning point of a series of bifurcations drawn out diagrammatically in the old-fashioned Ramist manner. It also allocated more articles to theology than to any other subject, as the reader could tell by consulting notes attached to every branch of the sciences. To be sure, a freethinker like Diderot might have been expected to welcome a system that seemed to derive theology from the rational and the “scientifical” branches of thought. But the bough labeled “rational” issued in four subbranches, which accorded equal dignity to those sciences that he wanted to belittle, metaphysics and religion, and to those sciences that he wanted to elevate, mathematics and physics. Worse, the tree had no branch for philosophy as such. The sacred and the secular ran together through all its ramifications. And in the general confusion, a vital, Baconian point was lost: the arts and sciences seemed to grow out of each other, not to derive from the operations of the mind. Diderot and d’Alembert wanted to root knowledge in epistemology; so they abandoned their immediate source, Chambers, and went back to Bacon.

回归培根就好比直接跳过洛克。正如达朗贝尔在《初步论述》中所指出的，培根仍然使用经院哲学的语言，仍然在中世纪的黑暗深处摸索着光明。 ¹³然而，培根的许多思想——对归纳的强调、对感知与反思的区分、以及从形而上学体系转向对感官经验的直接世界的探究——与后来随着洛克的出现而兴起的经验主义有着某种关联。与钱伯斯的理论不同，培根的知识之树确实表明，艺术和科学都源于心智能力。因此，培根为狄德罗和达朗贝尔提供了他们所需的模型，他们如此忠实地遵循这一模型，以至于被指控抄袭。 ¹⁴但他们也在几个重要方面偏离了这一模型，正如他们在《展望》和《初步论述》中反复强调的那样。 他们设计了一幅符合自身目的的“世界地图”，正如培根为了自身利益而绘制了一幅“知识世界的微型地球仪”一样。 ¹⁵通过将他们的地图叠加到培根的地图上，人们可以看到知识版图的变迁，这或许能为百科全书的潜在策略提供线索。

To return to Bacon was to leap over Locke. As d‘Alembert noted in the Discours préliminaire, Bacon still used scholastic language, still groped for light in the depths of medieval darkness.¹³ Yet much of Bacon’s thought—the emphasis on induction, the distinction between perception and reflection, the turning away from metaphysical systems and toward the investigation of the immediate world of sense experience—had an affinity with the empiricism that was later to emerge with Locke. Bacon’s tree of knowledge, unlike that of Chambers, really did suggest that the arts and sciences grew from the faculties of the mind. So Bacon provided Diderot and d’Alembert with the model they needed, and they followed it so closely that they were accused of plagiarism.¹⁴ But they also deviated from it at several significant points, as they emphasized repeatedly in the Prospectus and the Discours préliminaire. They devised a “mappemonde” to suit their own purposes, just as Bacon created “a small globe of the intellectual world” to suit his.¹⁵ By superimposing their map on his, one can see shifts in the topography of knowledge, which may serve as clues to the underlying strategy of the Encyclopédie.

与培根一样，狄德罗和达朗贝尔也从历史入手，即从记忆中汲取的知识分支；他们也像培根一样，将历史分为四个分支：教会史、世俗史、文学史和自然史（参见本章附录）。但他们的体系比例与培根截然不同。对他们而言，教会史只是一个次要分支，在《论序言》正文中仅用一句话匆匆带过，在书末对培根树状图的评注中更是只字未提。而对培根来说，教会史则包含丰富的分支，例如天意史，它展现了上帝之手在人类事务中的运作，“驳斥了那些认为世上没有上帝之人”。 ¹⁶自然史在两棵树状图上的位置则恰恰相反。培根认为自然史是一个“不完善”的分支，需要进一步发展，尤其是在机械工艺领域。¹⁷这些技艺占据了百科全书体系的广阔领域，构成了《 百科全书》本身最广泛、最具原创性的部分。狄德罗和达朗贝尔并没有在世间寻求上帝的旨意，而是研究人们如何工作，如何创造自己的幸福。

Like Bacon, Diderot and d‘Alembert began with history, the branch of knowledge derived from memory; and like him, they divided it into four subbranches: ecclesiastical, civil, literary, and natural (see appendix to this chapter). But the proportions of their schema differed completely from his. To them, ecclesiastical history was a minor branch, which they hurried over in one sentence in the body of the Discours preliminaire and failed to mention at all in the commentary on Bacon’s tree printed at its end. For Bacon, ecclesiastical history had a rich set of subdivisions, including the history of Providence, which demonstrated the hand of God at work in human affairs, to “the confuting of those which are as without God in the world.” ¹⁶ The place of natural history on the two trees is exactly the reverse. Bacon considered it a “deficient” branch, one that needed developing, especially in the area of the mechanical arts.¹⁷ Those arts occupied a vast area of the encyclopedic tree and constituted the most extensive and original part of the Encyclopédie itself. Diderot and d’Alembert did not seek out the hand of God in the world but rather studied men at work, forging their own happiness.

当然，培根也提倡研究日常生活，但他并未将其与天意割裂开来，而百科全书派则将日常生活的改善完全归功于像他们一样的知识分子的影响；因此，他们提出了公民史和文学史的区分：“人类历史的目的要么是研究人类的行为，要么是研究人类的知识，因此，历史要么是公民史，要么是文学史。换句话说，历史的划分在于伟大的民族和伟大的天才，在于君王和文人，在于征服者和哲学家。” ¹⁸这种表述赋予了启蒙思想家崇高的地位。根据达朗贝尔在《初步论述》中所作的概述，历史的发展轨迹从文艺复兴时期的哲学家到启蒙运动时期的哲学家，呈现出一条辉煌的轨迹。然而，在培根看来，文学史（“公正的学问史”，而非“诗歌”或想象的艺术）¹⁹并未展现理性进步的进程。它如此匮乏，几乎可以忽略不计：“在我看来，世界历史就像一尊被挖去一只眼睛的波吕斐摩斯雕像；缺失的恰恰是最能展现人物精神和生命力的那部分。” ²⁰ 狄德罗和达朗贝尔从同样的比喻中得出了不同的结论，尽管他们巧妙地曲解了这一比喻：“科学是人类反思和自然之光的产物。因此，培根在其杰作《论科学的尊严与增进》中说 ，没有学者历史的世界历史就像一尊被挖去一只眼睛的波吕斐摩斯雕像，这是有道理的。” ²¹在培根眼中是黑暗的地方，他们看到的却是光明，并以自己作为启蒙传播者的角色而自豪。

Of course, Bacon also advocated the study of the workaday world, but he did not cut it off from Providence, while the Encyclopedists attributed its improvement entirely to the influence of intellectuals like themselves; hence their version of the distinction between civil and literary history: “The history of man has for its object either his actions or his knowledge, and consequently is civil or literary. In other words, it is divided between the great nations and the great geniuses, between the kings and the men of letters, between the conquerors and the philosophers.” ¹⁸ This formulation cast the philosophes in a grand role. History followed a glorious trajectory from the philosophers of the Renaissance to the philosophers of the Enlightenment, according to the sketch that d‘Alembert included in the Discours préliminaire. To Bacon, however, literary history (the “just story of learning” as opposed to “poesy” or the arts of the imagination)¹⁹ did not reveal the progressive march of reason. It was so deficient as hardly to exist at all: “The history of the world seemeth to me to be as the statue of Polyphemus with his eye out; that part being wanting which doth most show the spirit and life of the person.”²⁰ Diderot and d’Alembert drew a different conclusion from the same metaphor, strategically misconstrued : “The sciences are the work of the reflection and of the natural light of men. Chancellor Bacon was therefore justified in saying in his admirable work De dignitate et augmento scientiarum that the history of the world without the history of scholars is the statue of Polyphemus with his eye torn out.”²¹ Where Bacon saw darkness, they saw light and gloried in their role as purveyors of Enlightenment.

源于想象的艺术，被误称为诗歌，在两棵知识树上看起来几乎相同，只是《百科全书》通过造型艺术进一步拓展了其分支，而培根并未提及。最大的差异出现在源于理性的科学，即哲学——知识三大分支中的第三个分支。在捍卫《百科全书》的知识树，反驳耶稣会记者纪尧姆-弗朗索瓦·贝尔蒂埃的攻击时，狄德罗坚持认为“哲学分支是独一无二的，它是我们体系中最广泛、最重要的分支，而培根大臣的著作中几乎找不到任何相关内容。” ²²《初步论述》结尾处对培根知识树的评论也表达了同样的观点，并意味深长地补充道：“评判我们在这方面的做法，应该由哲学家，也就是极少数人来做。” ²³对于狄德罗这样的哲学家来说，这一点显而易见，因为在《百科全书》这棵哲学之树上，与其说是一根树枝，不如说是一根主干。从这棵树上，在一根相当偏僻的树枝上，生长出“启示神学”，它与一系列可疑的主题混杂在一起，例如“迷信”、“占卜”、“黑魔法”、“善恶精灵的科学”。百科全书编纂者仅仅通过排列事物来传达信息，就像他们条目中臭名昭著的交叉引用一样（例如，食人症：“参见圣餐、圣体圣事、祭坛等。” ²⁴）。围绕知识的映射，一个新的维度已经发展起来。形式赋予意义，形态学变成了反讽。

The arts derived from the imagination, rather misleadingly labeled poetry, look pretty much the same on the two trees, except that the Encyclopédie pursued their ramifications through plastic arts that Bacon did not mention. The greatest differences appeared among the sciences derived from reason, that is, philosophy, the third of the three main divisions of knowledge. In defending the encyclopedic tree against the attacks of the Jesuit journalist, Guillaume-François Berthier, Diderot insisted on the originality of “the philosophical branch, which is the most extensive, the most important of our system, and of which almost nothing can be found in Chancellor Bacon.”²² The observations on Bacon’s tree at the end of the Discours préliminaire made the same point, adding cryptically, “It is for philosophers, that is to say, for a very small number of persons, to judge us on this point.”²³ To a philosopher of Diderot’s stripe the point would be obvious, for in the tree of the Encyclopédie philosophy was not so much a branch as the principal trunk. Out of it, on a rather remote twig, grew “revealed theology” amidst a cluster of dubious subjects: “superstitions,” “divination,” “black magic,” “the science of good and evil spirits.” The Encyclopedists conveyed a message merely by positioning things, as in the notorious cross references of their articles (for example, ANTHROPOPHAGY: “See EUCHARIST, COMMUNION, ALTAR, etc.”²⁴) A new dimension had developed around the mapping of knowledge. Shape yielded significance, and morphology turned into irony.

狄德罗和达朗贝尔也可以通过声称他们的哲学树是仿照培根的构建来掩盖其真实意图。他们像培根一样将哲学分为神学、自然和人学三个部分；并将上帝的科学置于顶端，似乎是为了维护其作为科学女王的地位。然而，事实上，他们完全颠覆了培根的体系。培根只将异教的“自然神学”纳入哲学范畴，并强调其不完善之处。这足以驳斥无神论，因为对上帝造物的沉思会迫使人们承认上帝的存在。但是，从观察到的现象进行归纳推理——即从设计论证有神论——永远无法通往对真正的基督教上帝的认识。“我们不应该试图用理性来解释或征服上帝的奥秘，”培根警告说。因此，他将宗教与哲学分开，强调“宗教与哲学因混为一谈而遭受的极端偏见；这种混为一谈无疑会造就异端邪说和虚构荒诞的哲学。” ²⁵

Diderot and d’Alembert could also hide their meaning by claiming that they shaped their tree after Bacon’s. Like him, they divided philosophy into three parts, divine, natural, and human; and by putting the science of God at the top, they seemed to preserve its place as the queen of the sciences. In fact, however, they completely undermined Bacon’s system. He included only pagan “natural theology” within philosophy and emphasized its imperfection. It sufficed to confound atheism, because the contemplation of God’s works compelled one to acknowledge His existence. But inductive reasoning from observed phenomena—arguments for theism from design—never could lead to knowledge of the true, Christian God. “We ought not to attempt to draw down or to submit the mysteries of God to our reason,” Bacon warned. So he separated religion from philosophy, underscoring “the extreme prejudice which both religion and philosophy hath received by being commixed together; as that which undoubtedly will make an heretical religion and an imaginary and fabulous philosophy.”²⁵

这与狄德罗和达朗贝尔的论证截然相反。他们将宗教置于哲学之下，实际上是使宗教去基督教化了。当然，他们自称是正统派。他们指出，上帝在“神圣历史”中启示了自己。因此，启示是一个无可辩驳的事实，可以像其他任何事物一样从记忆中提取出来，并接受理性检验：“因此，将神学与哲学分离（就像培根所做的那样），就好比从与其本质相连的主干上砍掉枝条。” ²⁶前提听起来虔诚，但结论却带有异端邪说的意味，因为它似乎将神学置于理性之下，而他们对理性的描述方式却带有洛克式的色彩，仿佛人们可以通过将感觉构建成越来越复杂和抽象的概念来获得对上帝的认识。事实上，当他们在论述知识之树时谈到“上帝的科学”时，狄德罗和达朗贝尔提出的论点简直就像直接出自《人类理解论》：

Nothing could be further from the reasoning of Diderot and d‘Alembert. By subjecting religion to philosophy, they effectively dechristianized it. Of course, they professed orthodoxy. They noted that God had revealed Himself in “sacred history.” Revelation therefore was an impeccable fact, which could be culled from memory and submitted to reason like anything else: “Thus, to separate theology from philosophy [as Bacon had done] would be to cut the offshoot from the trunk to which it is united by its very nature.”²⁶ The premises sounded pious, but the conclusion smacked of heresy because it seemed to subordinate theology to reason, which they described in a Lockean manner, as if one could arrive at knowledge of God by building sensations into ever more complex and abstract ideas. Indeed, when they came to the “science of God” in their account of the tree of knowledge, Diderot and d’Alembert advanced an argument that could have come straight out of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding:

所有这些对培根的修剪、嫁接和改根的意义，在达朗贝尔的《初步论述》中得到了清晰的展现。达朗贝尔在其论文的核心部分阐述了知识之树，探讨了艺术与科学的系统性联系。他将这一部分置于两个层面：一方面是探讨知识在个体心灵中的起源，另一方面是阐述知识在社会中的发展。因此，《 初步论述》可以被视为一幅三联画，其中中央部分描绘了知识的形态，而两侧部分则分别呈现了认识论和历史的观点。

The implications of all this pruning, grafting, and uprooting of Bacon became clear in d‘Alembert’s Discours préliminaire. D’Alembert expounded the tree of knowledge in the central section of his essay, which dealt with the systemic connections of the arts and sciences. He situated this section between a discussion of the genesis of knowledge within individual minds, on the one hand, and an account of its development within society, on the other. Thus the Discours préliminaire can be seen as a triptych, in which the central panel provides a morphological picture of knowledge, while the side panels present epistemological and historical views.

然而， 《初步论述》的三面结构并不容易辨析。尽管这篇文章无疑堪称启蒙运动的重要宣言，但它并非清晰易懂的典范。与培根一样，达朗贝尔也试图通过探索知识世界来构建一幅“世界地图”；但他偏离了方向，遭遇了矛盾，并在试图梳理自培根时代以来积累的一切知识的过程中，陷入了困境。正是这些困难使得这段旅程意义非凡。因此，它的曲折历程值得我们细致地探究。

The three-sided structure of the Discours préliminaire is not easy to discern, however. Although the essay certainly deserves to be considered as a major manifesto of the Enlightenment, it is not a model of clarity. Like Bacon, d’Alembert set out to produce a “mappemonde” by circumnavigating the world of knowledge; but he wandered off course, ran into contradictions, and floundered in inconsistencies as he tried to find a way through everything that had accumulated since Bacon’s time. It was the difficulties that made the journey so momentous. So its zigs and zags are worth following in some detail.

达朗贝尔采取了一种大胆的、洛克式的策略。他解释说，所有知识都源于感觉和反思。观念的形成始于感官的嗡鸣，而非某种对先天观念的内省式剖析：我感觉，故我在。从对自我的认知出发，我发展到对外部对象的认知，体验到快乐和痛苦，进而发展到道德观念。此时，达朗贝尔似乎将伦理学根植于某种功利主义，并将研究重点从个体观念的形成转向个体如何构建社会。这种策略使他回到了最初，回到了处于自然状态的人类。前社会时代的人类如同霍布斯笔下的野兽一般生活，遵循着“被称为强者法则的野蛮不平等权利” ²⁸，而非洛克式的自然法。但他们遭受压迫的经历唤醒了他们的道德意识，促使他们通过组织社会来捍卫自身的合法权利。一旦融入社会生活，他们便开始质疑自己新获得的道德观念的来源。它不可能来自物质世界，因此必定源于我们内在某种精神原则，正是这种原则迫使我们反思正义与非正义。我们认识到两种原则在发挥作用：心智和身体；而在这一认识的过程中，我们感受到自身的不完美，这暗示着一种先于完美的概念。最终，我们由此获得了对上帝的理解。

D‘Alembert embarked on a bold, Lockean tack. All knowledge derived from sensation and reflection, he explained. Ideation began with the buzzing of the senses rather than from some introspective unpacking of innate ideas: I feel, therefore I am. From knowledge of the self, I advance to knowledge of external objects, the experience of pleasure and pain, and thence to notions of morality. At this point, d’Alembert seemed to root ethics in a kind of utilitarianism, and he shifted from the consideration of how ideas developed in the individual to the question of how individuals formed societies. This tack took him back to the beginning, to man in the state of nature. Presocial men lived like Hobbesian brutes, by “the barbarian right of inequality called the law of the strongest,”²⁸ rather than by Lockean natural law. But their experience of oppression awakened their moral sense and drove them to protect their legitimate rights by organizing in societies. Once engaged in social life, they began to question the source of their newly acquired morality. It could not come from the physical world, so it must come from some spiritual principle dwelling within us, which had forced us to reflect on justice and injustice. We recognize two principles at work, mind and body; and in the act of recognition, we sense our imperfection, which implies a prior notion of perfection itself. In the end, therefore, we arrive at a conception of God.

这是一个奇特的论证。在与霍布斯（预示着卢梭的思想）有过短暂接触后，达朗贝尔又与笛卡尔纠缠不清。他的论述方式从假设历史转向了认识论的内省。他认为，伦理思想的萌芽迫使人类审视自身的思维实体或灵魂，他立刻意识到灵魂与肉体毫无共同之处。也就是说，他引申出了笛卡尔的二元论；紧接着，他又迅速推导出了笛卡尔的上帝：“这种（肉体与灵魂的）相互奴役，如此独立于我们自身，连同我们被迫对这两个原则的本质及其不完美之处进行的思考，将我们提升到对全能智慧的沉思之中，我们赖以生存的正是这位智慧，因此，我们理应敬拜他。” ²⁹

It was an odd argument. After a brush with Hobbes, which anticipated Rousseau, d’Alembert became entangled with Descartes. His mode of exposition shifted from hypothetical history to epistemological introspection. He argued that the dawning of ethical thought forced man to examine his own thinking substance or soul, which he immediately recognized as having nothing in common with his body. That is, he induced Descartes’s dualism; and in the next, swift leap, he derived Descartes’s God: “This mutual slavery [of body and soul], which is so independent of us, together with the reflections that we are compelled to make on the nature of the two principles and on their imperfection, lifts us to the contemplation of an all-powerful Intelligence to whom we owe our being and who consequently requires our worship.”²⁹

达朗贝尔走了一条洛克式的路径，最终却得到了笛卡尔式的上帝。他先是遵循了洛克关于日益复杂和抽象的观念组合的论证，然后又反其道而行之，以笛卡尔的方式，直接从对不完美的意识跃升到逻辑上先于的完美概念，从而达到了至高无上的抽象。从这一高远的本体论立场出发，笛卡尔进一步推导出了广延的世界，最终回到了洛克的起点。达朗贝尔则反其道而行之，从洛克的起点出发；因此，他的认识论向前推进，而他的形而上学却向后倒退。事实上，他的论证回顾读起来就像一系列不合逻辑的推论：

D‘Alembert had taken a Lockean route to a Cartesian God. After following Locke’s argument about the combination of increasingly complex and abstract ideas, he had reversed himself and arrived at the supreme abstraction in the manner of Descartes, by a direct jump from the consciousness of imperfection to the logically prior notion of perfection. From this high ontological ground, Descartes had gone on to derive the world of extension, ending where Locke began. D’Alembert proceeded in the opposite direction, beginning where Locke did; so his epistemology ran forward and his metaphysics backward. Indeed, the recapitulation of his argument reads like a series of non sequiturs:

达朗贝尔在宗教上或许不够正统，但他绝非愚钝之人。他为何要将如此矛盾的命题压缩成一个论证？他略显随意的论述风格表明，他并非意在将《初步论述》作为一部正式的哲学论著来阅读。他打算将其作为百科全书的导论，因此行文迅速。例如，他指出对灵魂的敏锐认知“自然而然”地源于对道德的思考，仿佛人们可以毫不费力地从伦理论证转向认识论论证。“无需深入探究，”他补充道，就能认识到身心二元论。³¹他几乎是把笛卡尔关于上帝存在的证明用一句话带过，几乎像是在括号里提及。这种仓促的措辞表明，现代哲学家可以迅速解决形而上学问题，或者至少无需在这些问题上花费太多时间。马勒伯朗士等人将笛卡尔主义奉为新的正统教义。达朗贝尔通过呼应他们的论点，确立了自己作为一名虔诚天主教徒的资格；而他又通过在这些论点中插入自相矛盾之处，削弱了它们，这或许是出于有意为之。如前所述，《初步论述》以修订版的《展望》结尾，其中关于上帝的论述仿佛是对《人类理解论》的注释。这部《百科全书》时而显得混乱不堪，带有笛卡尔式的色彩，时而又大胆地展现出洛克式的风格。读者可以自行得出结论。

D‘Alembert may have been less than orthodox in religion, but he was no fool. Why did he compress such incompatible propositions into a single argument? The rather casual style of his exposition suggests that he did not mean the Discours préliminaire to be read as a formal treatise in philosophy. He intended it to serve as an introduction to an encyclopedia, and so he moved fast. Thus he noted that a perceptive knowledge of the soul came “naturally” from considerations of morality, as if one could shift from an ethical to an epistemological argument with no difficulty at all. “It is not necessary to probe deeply,” he added, in order to recognize the dualism between body and soul.³¹ He dashed through Descartes’s proof of the existence of God in a sentence, almost in a parenthetical remark. The hasty turns of phrase suggested that the modern philosopher could dispatch with metaphysical questions quickly, or at least that he need not tarry over them. Malebranche and others had erected Cartesianism into a new orthodoxy. By echoing their arguments, d’Alembert established his own credentials as a good Catholic; and by splicing the arguments with inconsistencies, he undercut them, perhaps intentionally. As noted above, the Discours préliminaire ended with a revised version of the Prospectus, which argued about God as if it were a gloss on An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Having appeared confusedly Cartesian in one place, the Encyclopédie sounded audaciously Lockean in another. The reader could draw his own conclusions.

但如果就此断定达朗贝尔有意用不相容的命题来混淆视听，那就错了。论证中常常充斥着各种矛盾之处，这并非作者有意为之，而是因为他无意识地使用了不同的语言表达方式。达朗贝尔写作的时代，经院哲学、笛卡尔哲学和洛克哲学的语言在哲学论述中相互交织。每当他放松警惕或需要回避某个棘手的问题时，他便能轻松地在不同的语言表达方式之间切换。事实上，这种程度的语言转换恰好契合了《初步论述》的迂回曲折的风格。在阐述知识认识论之后，达朗贝尔反对科学方法中过度追求逻辑一致性。他认为，哲学家不应先提出一套严谨一致的前提，然后进行演绎推理，而应接受自然本来的面目，将自然现象还原为潜在的原理，然后系统地重构这些原理。这种系统精神建立在基本原则真实存在的假设之上，但它不像系统精神那样将这些原则的存在作为出发点。然而，有人可能会反驳说，达朗贝尔的假设——在他最戏剧化的论断中，即“对于能够从单一视角理解宇宙的人来说，宇宙可以说只是一个单一的事实和一个伟大的真理” ³² ——是一种信仰，而非知识。他又如何知道知识最终会自洽呢？

But it would be wrong to conclude that d‘Alembert meant to becloud his argument by fogging it over with incompatible propositions. Arguments often burst at the seams with incompatibilities, not because their author intended them to but because he unconsciously utilized different idioms. D’Alembert wrote at a time when scholastic, Cartesian, and Lockean language jostled one another in philosophic discourse. He easily slipped from one idiom to another whenever he dropped his guard or needed to negotiate around a difficult point. In fact, a certain amount of slippage suited the meandering character of the Discours préliminaire. In the section following his epistemological account of knowledge, d‘Alembert spoke out against excessive coherence in scientific method. Instead of laying out a rigorously consistent set of premises and proceeding deductively, he maintained, philosophers ought to take nature as they found it, reduce its phenomena down to their underlying principles, and then reconstruct those principles systematically. This esprit systématique rested on the postulate that underlying principles really existed, but it did not, like the esprit de système, take their existence as its starting point. Still, it could be objected that d’Alembert’s postulate—expressed at its most dramatic in his contention that “the universe, to someone who could embrace it from a single point of view, would be so to speak only a single fact and one great truth”³²—was a matter of faith, not knowledge. How did he know that knowledge ultimately would cohere?

达朗贝尔并没有直接面对这个问题，而是试图通过考察艺术和科学的所有分支来论证它们的内在联系。他从认识论的论证模式转向形态学的论证模式，最终形成了他对知识之树的论述。即便如此，他的论证仍然在不相容的阐述方式之间摇摆不定。有时，他展开了艺术和科学的“哲学史” ^{33 ，延续了之前关于它们起源于自然状态的讨论；有时，他又根据它们的“哲学秩序” 34}或逻辑关系来展开论述。

Instead of confronting that question directly, d’Alembert tried to demonstrate the cohesion of the arts and sciences by surveying all their branches. He shifted from an epistemological to a morphological mode of argument, which culminated in his discussion of the tree of knowledge. Even so, the argument continued to sway between incompatible types of exposition. At times it developed a “philosophical history”³³ of the arts and sciences, continuing the earlier discussion of their genesis from the state of nature. At times it took them up according to their “philosophical order” ³⁴ or logical relations.

达朗贝尔之所以从逻辑本身入手，是因为他认为逻辑最为重要，尽管它在发现顺序上并非首位。与此同时，他宣称自己打算按照一个假想的发展年表来讨论各门科学。他以这种前后矛盾的方式，先后论述了语法、雄辩术、历史、年代学、地理、政治和美术，最终抵达了百科全书树。这棵树为他提供了一个概览，因为它象征着知识的整体性，既体现在“百科全书式”的秩序中，也体现在“谱系式”的秩序中 ³⁵ ——也就是说，它将两种自《初步论述》开篇就濒临分离的论证模式融合在了一起。 培根已经展示了如何运用这种技巧。他的树表明，知识从心智的各种能力中涌现，并最终形成一个有机的整体。但这并没有阐明一个完整的认识论论证。就其所暗示的任何认识论而言，它都让人联想到亚里士多德和阿奎那的思想。达朗贝尔和狄德罗想要使旧有的能力心理学与时俱进。因此，他们以洛克的方式修剪了培根的理论体系，从而使形态学与认识论相一致。

D‘Alembert began with logic itself because he considered it first in importance, even though it did not rank first in the order of discovery. At the same time, he proclaimed his intention of discussing the sciences according to a hypothetical chronology of their development. Continuing in this inconsistent manner, he picked his way through grammar, eloquence, history, chronology, geography, politics, and the fine arts until he arrived at the encyclopedic tree. It provided him with an overview of everything, because it emblematized the totality of knowledge both in “the encyclopedic order” and in “the genealogical order”³⁵—that is, it brought together the two modes of argument that had threatened to fly apart from the very beginning of the Discours préliminaire. Bacon had shown how to turn this trick. His tree demonstrated that knowledge grew into an organic whole while emanating from the faculties of the mind. But it did not illustrate a full-blown epistemological argument. Insofar as it suggested any epistemology at all, it conjured up notions from Aristotle and Aquinas. D’Alembert and Diderot wanted to bring the old faculty psychology up to date. So they trimmed Bacon’s tree in the Lockean manner and thereby brought morphology into line with epistemology.

第二个技巧使论证的力量倍增，因为它排除了所有无法从感官和反思中获得的知识。达朗贝尔谨慎地在历史的范畴下为“启示事实” ³⁶留出了空间，但他将启示置于哲学——知识最重要的分支——的理性范畴之下。当然，有人可能会说阿奎那也做了同样的事情。但阿奎那的《神学大全》囊括了所有能够纳入三段论谓词的内容，而狄德罗和达朗贝尔的《神学大全》则排除了所有无法通过感官达到理性的事物。在他们的体系中，与培根的体系不同，“自然神学”（与“宗教”相平衡）与“启示神学”（与“迷信”相平衡）享有同等地位。教会的传统教义几乎找不到任何容身之处。尽管记忆或许能将它们从历史中唤起，但在哲学领域，它们看起来并不比斯多葛主义或儒家思想更合理。事实上，它们早已不再是知识。形态学和认识论的论证结合起来，将正统宗教排除在外，将其归入不可知的领域，从而将其排除在现代学术世界之外。

This second trick more than doubled the power of the argument because it ruled out of bounds any knowledge that could not be derived from sensation and reflection. D‘Alembert prudently left room for “revealed facts”³⁶ under the rubric of history, but he subjected revelation to reason under philosophy, the most important division of knowledge. Of course, it might be argued that Aquinas had done as much. But the Summa of Aquinas embraced everything that could fit within the predicate of a syllogism, while the Summa of Diderot and d’Alembert excluded everything that could not reach reason through the senses. On their tree, unlike Bacon’s, “natural theology” (balanced by “religion”) received equal billing with “revealed theology” (balanced by “superstition”). It was difficult to find any place at all for the traditional doctrines of the church. Although memory might summon them out of history, they would look no more reasonable than Stoicism or Confucianism in the realm of philosophy. In fact, they had ceased to be knowledge altogether. The morphological and epistemological arguments combined to cut orthodox religion off the map, to consign it to the unknowable, and thus to exclude it from the modern world of learning.

历史论证最终完成了这项工作。达朗贝尔将历史视为文明的胜利，并将文明视为文人墨客的杰作。《论史前导论》 的最后一部分提出了一种伟人史观，认为所有伟人都是哲学家。 ³⁷在哀叹黑暗时代并赞颂文艺复兴之后，该部分着重论述了最伟大的几位：培根、笛卡尔、牛顿和洛克。

The historical argument completed the job. D’Alembert presented history as the triumph of civilization and civilization as the work of men of letters. The last section of the Discours préliminaire propounded a kind of great-man view of history in which all the great men were philosophers.³⁷ After deploring the Dark Ages and celebrating the Renaissance, it concentrated on the greatest of the great: Bacon, Descartes, Newton, and Locke.

在这幅宏大的图景中，培根被描绘成哲学的先驱，第一个驱散黑暗、将理性限制在其恰当领域——研究自然现象——的人。诚然，他未能与经院哲学彻底决裂。这项任务落在了笛卡尔身上，他打破了自阿奎那（或许还有亚里士多德）时代以来束缚哲学的枷锁。达朗贝尔称赞的是笛卡尔的怀疑论者身份，而非形而上学家身份。他解释说，先天观念论实际上是一种倒退，因为它将理性引入了感官经验之外的世界，而经院哲学家至少“保留了逍遥学派所传授的唯一真理，即观念起源于感官。” ³⁸虽然这种表述让阿奎那听起来像洛克，但它的优势在于削弱了形而上学中的新正统观念；这为牛顿铺平了道路，牛顿“赋予哲学一种似乎必然会保持的形式”。 ³⁹ 达朗贝尔笔下的牛顿之所以成为完美的现代哲学家，不仅因为他发现了太阳系的基本定律，还因为他将哲学的研究范围限定于对可观察现象的研究。与试图了解一切的笛卡尔不同，他将知识限制在可知的范围内；他是谦逊的牛顿。从这位牛顿——伏尔泰《哲学信札》中的牛顿 ，而非《启示录》中的牛顿——到洛克及其“灵魂的实验物理学” ⁴⁰ ，不过一步之遥。洛克代表了谦逊的极致，是哲学最终的约束，因为他为可知的领域设定了最终的界限。通过将所有知识还原为感觉和反思，他最终将超自然真理从知识的世界中剔除。

Bacon appeared in this grand tableau as the progenitor of philosophy, the first man to dissipate darkness and to restrict reason to its proper sphere, the study of natural phenomena. To be sure, he failed to break completely with scholasticism. That task fell to Descartes, who destroyed the fetters that had held back philosophy since the time of Aquinas, if not Aristotle. D‘Alembert hailed Descartes the doubter, not Descartes the metaphysician. The doctrine of innate ideas actually represented a step backward, he explained, for it led reason astray into a world beyond sense experience, whereas the scholastics at least “retained from the peripatetic sect the sole truth that it had taught, namely that of the origin of ideas in the senses.”³⁸ Although this formulation made Aquinas sound like Locke, it had the advantage of undercutting neo-orthodoxy in metaphysics; and it cleared the way for Newton, who “gave to philosophy a form that it seems certain to conserve.”³⁹ D’Alembert’s Newton served as the perfect modern philosopher not merely because he discovered the fundamental law of the solar system but because he restricted philosophy to the study of observed phenomena. Unlike Descartes, who tried to know everything, he limited knowledge to the knowable; he was Newton the modest. From this Newton, the Newton of Voltaire’s Lettres philosophiques rather than of the Book of Revelation, it was but one step to Locke and “the experimental physics of the soul.”⁴⁰ Locke represented the ultimate in modesty, the definitive reining-in of philosophy, because he fixed the final limits to the knowable. By reducing all knowledge to sensation and reflection, he at last eliminated extraterrestrial truth from the world of learning.

这些伟人一旦确立了知识的疆界，填补空白便成了后人的使命。达朗贝尔考察了当时顶尖的科学家和哲学家，迅速从伽利略、哈维、惠更斯和帕斯卡过渡到丰特奈尔、布丰、孔狄亚克、伏尔泰、孟德斯鸠和卢梭。这阵容令人印象深刻，但达朗贝尔却难以将他们统领起来。他认为，每位思想家都巩固了培根、笛卡尔、牛顿和洛克所征服的部分领域；因此，自文艺复兴以来的历史展现了理性不断进步的历程。然而，有些哲学家的出现早于这四位领军人物，而另一些哲学家虽然追随他们，却步调不同。帕斯卡很难被归类为自然宗教的拥护者，莱布尼茨也很难被归类为系统精神的反对者。因此，帕斯卡以一位对神学颇感兴趣的实验物理学家的形象出现，而莱布尼茨则以一位误入形而上学的数学家的形象出现。卢梭则带来了一个尤其棘手的问题，因为他的《论科学与艺术》实际上削弱了整个百科全书的编纂事业。达朗贝尔巧妙地回避了这一难题，他指出卢梭参与《百科全书》的编纂实际上否定了他自相矛盾地贬低艺术和科学价值的观点。因此，尽管存在分歧，所有哲学家似乎都朝着同一个方向前进，扫除迷信，凯旋而归地传播启蒙思想，直至今日——也就是直至《百科全书》本身。

Once these great men had established the frontiers of knowledge, it remained for their successors to fill in the gaps. D‘Alembert surveyed the leading ranks of scientists and philosophers, passing rapidly from Galileo, Harvey, Huyghens, and Pascal to Fontenelle, Buffon, Condillac, Voltaire, Montesquieu, and Rousseau. It was an impressive array, but d’Alembert had difficulty keeping the men in line. He suggested that each thinker consolidated part of the territory conquered by Bacon, Descartes, Newton, and Locke; so that history since the Renaissance demonstrated the progressive march of reason. But some of the philosophers had come before the four chefs de file, and others, though they followed, marched to different tunes. Pascal could hardly be passed off as a partisan of natural religion or Leibniz as an adversary of the esprit de système. So Pascal appeared as an experimental physicist with a weakness for theology and Leibniz as a mathematician who lapsed into metaphysics. Rousseau presented a particularly embarrassing problem, because his Discours sur les sciences et les arts undercut the whole encyclopedic enterprise. D’Alembert skirted that difficulty by remarking that Rousseau’s collaboration on the Encyclopédie effectively repudiated his paradoxical deprecation of the value of the arts and sciences. Despite their differences, therefore, the entire population of philosophers seemed to advance in the same direction, sweeping superstition before them and carrying enlightenment in triumph, right up to the present—that is, to the Encyclopédie itself.

对达朗贝尔而言，这是一个激动人心的故事，但对现代读者来说，它可能显得有些单调。《导论》中 充满了激烈而英勇的隐喻：挣脱枷锁、揭开面纱、教义碰撞、攻占城堡。笛卡尔如是说：

To d’Alembert it was a stirring story, though to the modern reader it may look a little unilinear. The Discours préliminaire abounds in violent and heroic metaphors: the breaking of chains, the rending of veils, the clashing of doctrines, the storming of citadels. Thus Descartes:

这一主题与十八世纪中叶启蒙运动文学中盛行的哲学家崇拜同步出现。达朗贝尔在其著作《论文人与贵族社会》 （Essai sur la société des gens de lettres et les grands）中进一步发展了这一主题，该书出版于《初步论述》（Discours préliminaire）之后一年。 在书中，他再次将文人誉为争取文明的孤胆英雄，并进一步为文人社群（gens de lettres）作为一个社会群体发表了独立宣言。尽管他们曾遭受羞辱和忽视，但他们理应受到人类的赞誉，因为自文艺复兴以来，尤其是在路易十四统治时期，“哲学精神”开始在上流社会中占据主导地位之后，他们一直致力于推进启蒙事业的发展。⁴² 这种历史观很大程度上得益于伏尔泰。伏尔泰在《哲学书信集》 （1734）中阐述了文人的重要性，并在《路易十四的世纪》 （1751）中将他们与历史的进步动力联系起来。伏尔泰本人对《百科全书》的贡献，尤其是在“文人”条目中，进一步发展了这一主题，并阐明了其含义。历史的进步源于艺术和科学的完善；艺术和科学的进步则得益于文人的努力；而文人作为哲学家，为整个过程提供了动力。 “正是这种哲学精神似乎构成了文人的品格。” ⁴³ “哲学家”条目也表达了类似的观点。该条目改编自1743年著名的论著《哲学家》，该论著确立了一种理想类型——致力于启蒙事业的文人。⁴⁴在整个18世纪50年代，在小册子、戏剧、期刊和论文中，启蒙哲学家们逐渐被视为一个群体，是世俗文明的使徒，与传统和宗教正统的捍卫者相对立，或被认可或被诋毁。45他们中的许多人为《百科全书》做出了贡献^——事实上，人数如此之多，以至于“百科全书学者”（ Encyclopédiste） 和“启蒙哲学家”（philosophe）几乎成了同义词，这两个词在“文人”（gens de lettres）这一通用表达所涵盖的语义领域中，都挤占了其他竞争词——“学者”（ savant ） 、 “博学^之士”（érudit）、 “精神精英”（ gens d'esprit） 。46达朗贝尔在《初步论述》（Discours préliminaire）的结尾，将他的启蒙哲学家同伴们誉为“文人”的典范，牛顿和洛克的继承者，从而加剧了这种意义的转变。整部《百科全书》在其扉页上宣称自己是“一群文人”的作品，而它的朋友和敌人都将其与哲学联系起来。47它似乎体现了“文明=文人=哲学家”这一等式 ，并将历史上所有进步的潮流^都汇入了启蒙运动的阵营。

This theme emerged in tandem with the cult of the philosophe throughout Enlightenment literature in the mid-eighteenth century. D‘Alembert carried it further in his Essai sur la société des gens de lettres et les grands, published a year after the Discours préliminaire. Here again he celebrated the man of letters as the lone warrior in the struggle for civilization, and went on to issue a declaration of independence for gens de lettres as a social group. Although they had been humiliated and ignored, they deserved well of mankind because they had carried the cause of Enlightenment forward since the Renaissance and especially since the reign of Louis XIV, when the “philosophic spirit” began to set the tone in polite society.⁴² This view of history owed a great deal to Voltaire, who had proclaimed the importance of men of letters in the Lettres philosophiques (1734) and then identified them with the progressive drive in history in Le siècle de Louis XIV (1751). Voltaire’s own contributions to the Encyclopédie, notably in the article GENS DE LETTRES, developed the same theme and made its implications clear. History advanced through the perfection of the arts and sciences; the arts and sciences improved through the efforts of men of letters; and men of letters provided the motive force for the whole process by functioning as philosophes. “It is this philosophic spirit that seems to constitute the character of the men of letters.”⁴³ The article PHILOSOPHE made much the same point. It was adapted from the celebrated tract of 1743, Le Philosophe, which established an ideal type—the man of letters committed to the cause of Enlightenment. ⁴⁴ Throughout the 1750s, in pamphlets, plays, journals, and treatises, the philosophes came to be recognized or reviled as a kind of party, the secular apostles of civilization, in opposition to the champions of tradition and religious orthodoxy.⁴⁵ Many of them contributed to the Encyclopédie—so many, in fact, that Encyclopédiste and philosophe became virtual synonyms, and both terms crowded out their competitors—savant, érudit, gens d’esprit—in the semantic field covered by the general expression gens de lettres.⁴⁶ D’Alembert contributed to this shift in meaning by glorifying his fellow philosophes as the ultimate in gens de lettres, the heirs to Newton and Locke, at the end of the Discours préliminaire. The entire Encyclopédie proclaimed itself to be the work of “a society of men of letters” on its title page, while its friends and enemies alike identified it with philosophie.⁴⁷ It seemed to embody the equation civilization =gens de lettres=philosophes and to funnel all the progressive currents of history into the party of Enlightenment.

因此， 《初步论述》的历史论证完成了认识论和形态论论证的工作。它通过将启蒙思想家等同于文人阶层，并将文人阶层视为历史的推动力量，从而使启蒙思想家合法化。正如文章的前几部分论证了在培根知识体系之外不存在任何合法的知识一样，文章的后几部分则表明，在启蒙思想家圈子之外不存在任何合法的文人阶层。第二部分为了迎合感官主义认识论的要求而对知识体系进行了修剪，而第一部分则排除了所有缺乏经验基础的知识。因此，非经验知识——即教会所宣扬的教义——被排除在外，而第三部分则揭示了这些知识体系的守护者正是启蒙思想家。

Thus the historical argument of the Discours préliminaire completed the work undertaken in the epistemological and morphological arguments. It legitimized the philosophes by identifying them with gens de lettres and by presenting gens de lettres as the moving force in history. Just as the first parts of the essay demonstrated that there was no legitimate knowledge beyond the branches of the Baconian tree, the last part showed that there were no legitimate gens de lettres outside the circle of philosophes. Part two had trimmed the tree to fit the requirements of sensationalist epistemology, and part one had excluded all knowledge without an empirical base. So nonempirical knowledge, the doctrine taught by the Church, was ruled out of bounds, and the boundary keepers turned out in part three to be the philosophes.

尽管《初步论述》各部分之间存在张力和矛盾，但它们 在执行同一战略的过程中相互交织。这一战略成功地推翻了古代科学女王的地位，并将哲学提升至其应有的位置。因此，现代的《神学大全》远非一部中立的信息汇编，而是以一种将知识从神职人员手中夺回、交到致力于启蒙运动的知识分子手中的方式塑造了知识。这一战略的最终胜利体现在19世纪教育的世俗化和现代学术学科的兴起。但关键的转折点发生在18世纪50年代，当时百科全书派认识到知识就是力量，并通过绘制知识图谱，着手征服知识。

Despite their tensions and inconsistencies, the segments of the Discours préliminaire interlocked in the execution of a single strategy. It succeeded in dethroning the ancient queen of the sciences and in elevating philosophy to her place. Far from being a neutral compendium of information, therefore, the modern Summa shaped knowledge in such a way as to remove it from the clergy and to put it in the hands of intellectuals committed to the Enlightenment. The ultimate triumph of this strategy came with the secularization of education and the emergence of the modern scholarly disciplines during the nineteenth century. But the key engagement took place in the 1750s, when the Encyclopedists recognized that knowledge was power and, by mapping the world of knowledge, set out to conquer it.

巴厘岛人在准备葬礼时，会互相朗读故事，都是些耳熟能详的普通故事。他们一天24小时不停歇地朗读，有时甚至连续两三天，并非为了消遣，而是为了防范恶魔。恶魔会在死后灵魂脆弱的时期占据人心，而故事则能将它们拒之门外。这些故事如同层层嵌套的套娃，层层嵌套，引人入胜。当你读完一个故事，便会发现另一个，每转一个弯，故事便会从一个情节过渡到另一个情节，直到最终抵达叙事的核心——也就是尸体在宅院内的位置。恶魔无法进入这个空间，因为它们无法转弯。它们只能徒劳地撞击着读者们构建的叙事迷宫，因此，朗读为巴厘岛的仪式筑起了一道防御工事。它构筑了一道文字之墙，如同无线电广播的干扰器一般。它既不能娱乐，也不能教导，更不能提升，也不能帮助人们消磨时间：它通过叙事的交织和声音的嘈杂，来守护灵魂^。2

When the Balinese prepare a corpse for burial, they read stories to one another, ordinary stories from collections of their most familiar tales. They read them without stopping, twenty-four hours a day, for two or three days at a time, not because they need distraction but because of the danger of demons. Demons possess souls during the vulnerable period immediately after a death, but stories keep them out. Like Chinese boxes or English hedges, the stories contain tales within tales, so that as you enter one you run into another, passing from plot to plot every time you turn a corner, until at last you reach the core of the narrative space, which corresponds to the place occupied by the corpse within the inner courtyard of the household. Demons cannot penetrate this space because they cannot turn corners. They beat their heads helplessly against the narrative maze that the readers have built, and so reading provides a kind of defense fortification surrounding Balinese ritual. It creates a wall of words, which operates like the jamming of radio broadcasts. It does not amuse, instruct, improve, or help to while away the time: by the imbrication of narrative and the cacophony of sound, it protects souls.²

如今，阅读在西方或许从未如此新奇，尽管我们用《圣经》——用于宣誓、坚信礼和其他仪式——在巴厘岛人看来或许确实有些奢侈。但巴厘岛的例子说明了一个重要的观点：试图重现过去的阅读体验，最容易误导人的莫过于假设人们一直以来都以我们今天的方式阅读。如果真能写出一部阅读史，它必将描绘出人类理解世界方式中那份异域风情。因为阅读不同于木工或刺绣，它不仅仅是一种技能；它是在一个交流系统中积极地建构意义。要了解十八世纪的法国人如何阅读书籍，就等于了解他们的思维方式——也就是说，了解那些能够通过印刷符号参与思想传播的人的思维方式。

Now, reading may never have been so exotic in the West, although our use of the Bible—in the taking of oaths, confirmations, and other ceremonies—might look extravagant indeed to the Balinese. But the Balinese example illustrates an important point: nothing could be more misleading in an attempt to recapture the experience of reading in the past than the assumption that people have always read the way we do today. A history of reading, if it can ever be written, would chart the alien element in the way man has made sense of the world. For reading, unlike carpentry or embroidery, is not merely a skill; it is an active construal of meaning within a system of communication. To understand how the French read books in the eighteenth century is to understand how they thought—that is, those of them who could participate in the transmission of thought by means of printed symbols.

这项任务看似不可能完成，因为我们无法像现代心理学家那样，窥探十八世纪读者的内心世界并向他们提问。我们只能在图书馆和档案馆中搜寻他们阅读体验的残存痕迹，即便如此，我们也往往只能了解少数伟人对几部伟大著作的回顾性证词：例如卢梭对阅读普鲁塔克的回忆，以及司汤达对阅读卢梭的回忆。然而，一份档案——据我所知，它是法国和瑞士档案馆乃至其他任何地方现存的唯一一份——让我们得以追溯一位普通资产阶级人士在法国大革命前二十年间，于法国外省的日常生活中所经历的阅读历程。

The task may seem impossible because we cannot look over the shoulders of eighteenth-century readers and question them as a modern psychologist can question a reader today. We can only ferret out whatever remains of their experience in libraries and archives, and even then we can rarely get beyond the retrospective testimony of a few great men about a few great books: Rousseau’s recollections of reading Plutarch and Stendhal’s of reading Rousseau. But one dossier—the only one of its kind that exists in the archives of France and Switzerland, or anywhere else as far as I know—makes it possible to follow the readings of an ordinary bourgeois in the course of an ordinary life in provincial France during the last two decades before the French Revolution.

我想介绍这份档案，但必须声明其代表性不足，也无法从中找到任何一位旧制度下典型的法国人的画像。这份档案来自纳沙泰尔印刷公司（Société Typographique de Neuchâtel，简称STN）的档案，该公司是法国大革命前瑞士一家重要的法语书籍出版商。档案的主人公是来自拉罗谢尔的商人让·朗松（Jean Ranson）。¹⁷⁷⁴年，朗松开始与STN通信时，他27岁。父亲去世后，他接管了家族的丝绸生意，与母亲住在拉罗谢尔新教社区的中心地带。朗松家境殷实，但不如一些靠大西洋贸易发家的家族那样富有。让从父亲那里继承了2万里弗尔。1777年结婚时，他的妻子将为他带来1万里弗尔的嫁妆。她去世后，1788年的第二次婚姻带来了等额的财产（8000里弗尔以及基于2000里弗尔本金的年金）。到那时，朗森的个人财富，不包括嫁妆，将达到66000里弗尔——这是一笔相当可观的数目，尤其考虑到美国战争给当地经济带来的萧条。 ⁴随着生意兴隆，朗森在镇上和教会中的地位也日益重要。他是当地造币厂的官员（liutenant du prévôt de la Monnaie）。他管理着父亲于1765年创办的新教医院。法国大革命期间，他担任救济局局长，负责监督救济穷人的工作，并在恐怖统治结束后继续担任市政委员会和监狱委员会的成员。

I would like to present the dossier, making due disclaimers about its representativeness or the possibility of locating any typical Frenchman under the Old Regime. It comes from the archives of the Société Typographique de Neuchâtel (STN), an important Swiss publisher of French books in the prerevolutionary period, and it concerns Jean Ranson, a merchant from La Rochelle.³ In 1774 when he began to correspond with the STN, Ranson was twenty-seven. He had taken over his family’s business in the silk trade after the death of his father, and he lived with his mother in the heart of the Rochelais Protestant community. The Ransons were well off, though not as wealthy as some of the families who lived from the Atlantic trade. Jean had inherited 20,000 livres from his father. When he married in 1777, his wife was to bring him a dowry of 10,000 livres. After her death, a second marriage in 1788 would produce an equivalent amount (8,000 livres and an annuity based on a capital of 2,000 livres). And by then Ranson’s own fortune, excluding dowries, would come to 66,000 livres—a fairly handsome sum, especially if one takes into account the slump produced in the local economy by the American war.⁴ While his business prospered, Ranson occupied an increasingly important place in his town and church. He was an officer (lieutenant du prévôt de la Monnaie) of the local mint. He directed the Protestant hospital founded by his father in 1765. And during the Revolution, he supervised poor relief as president of the Bureau de bienfaisance, in addition to serving on the Conseil municipal and the Conseil des prisons once the Terror had passed.

朗松在拉罗谢尔商人寡头集团核心的地位在他1777年的婚约中体现得淋漓尽致。这份婚约共有76位证人签字；除三人外，其余证人均自称商人（négociants）。他们包括一位前市长、商会会长、两位前任商会会长，以及拉罗谢尔地区最显赫的商贾家族：拉博托家族、塞涅特家族、贝兰家族、雅尔纳克家族、罗伯茨家族，当然还有朗松家族本身。朗松的所有男性亲属都在婚约中以商人的身份出现，他的新娘玛德琳·拉博托的亲属也不例外——这并不奇怪，因为她是朗松的表妹。

Ranson’s position in the core of La Rochelle’s merchant oligarchy shows up clearly in his marriage contract of 1777. Seventy-six witnesses signed the contract; all but three of the men identified themselves as merchants (négociants). They included a former mayor, the director of the Chambre de commerce, two previous directors of the Chambre, and the flower of the Rochelais trading families: Raboteaus, Seignettes, Belins, Jarnacs, Roberts, and the Ransons themselves. All of Ranson’s male relatives appeared in the contract as négociants, and so did those of his bride, Madeleine Raboteau—not surprisingly, for she was his second cousin.

朗松在纳沙泰尔的信件证实了拉罗谢尔文献所描绘的印象。这些信件表明他为人严肃认真、勤奋努力、热心公益且家境富裕——堪称典型的地方资产阶级。最重要的是，他是一位新教徒。与法国大多数“假装改革宗教”（rpr）成员一样，他的父母为了给子女提供公民身份，正式宣布自己信奉天主教，因为当时国家并不承认新教徒的存在，尽管自1755年起，国家允许他们在拉罗谢尔举行宗教仪式。朗松夫妇也希望儿子接受扎实的加尔文主义教育。因此，他们将他送入纳沙泰尔的中学（collège），在那里他师从当地一位博学的名流弗雷德里克-塞缪尔·奥斯特瓦尔德（Frédéric-Samuel Ostervald），后者于几年后的1769年创立了纳沙泰尔国家学院（STN）。这位法国学生与他的瑞士老师建立了深厚的感情。因此，当朗森回到拉罗谢尔后，便一直与奥斯特瓦尔德保持书信联系；奥斯特瓦尔德开始出版书籍后，朗森便从他那里购买书籍。他购买了大量书籍，因为他酷爱读书，而STN除了印刷业务外，还是一家规模庞大的批发书商，几乎可以满足他所有的需求。与STN其他主要从事书商业务的通信者不同，朗森在发送订单时，会谈及自己的文学爱好和家庭生活。因此，在STN五万份文件中，他的这四十七封信件显得格外引人注目，恰恰是因为它如此不涉及商业利益。它让我们得以一窥一位读者在偏远省份的宁静角落里，一边处理日常琐事，一边谈论自己阅读的场景，这实属难得。

Ranson’s letters in Neuchâtel confirm the impression given by the documents in La Rochelle. They suggest that he was serious, responsible, hard-working, civic-minded, and rich—the very picture of the provincial bourgeois. Above all, he was Protestant. Like most members of the r.p.r. (religion prétendue réformée) in France, his parents had made a formal avowal of Catholicism in order to provide their children with a civil status, for the state did not legally recognize the existence of Protestants, though it had allowed them to hold services in La Rochelle since 1755. The Ransons also wanted their son to have a solid Calvinist education. They therefore sent him to the collège (secondary school) in Neuchatel, where he studied with Frédéric-Samuel Ostervald, a learned local notable, who was to found the STN a few years later, in 1769. The French student developed a strong attachment to his Swiss master. So when he returned to La Rochelle, Ranson kept in touch by letter; and when Ostervald took up publishing, Ranson bought books from him. He bought a great many because he was an avid reader and the STN, which did a huge business as a wholesale bookdealer in addition to its printing, could supply him with almost everything he wanted. Unlike the STN’s other correspondents, who were mainly booksellers, Ranson chatted about his literary interests and family life when he sent in his orders. Thus his dossier—forty-seven letters amidst the fifty thousand of the STN papers—stands out in the commercial correspondence of the STN precisely because it was so uncommercial. It provides a rare view of a reader discussing his reading while going about the everyday affairs of life in a quiet corner of the provinces.

在研究这份档案时，首先要问的问题是：朗森读过什么书？我们无法还原他的藏书，因为他拥有大量并非从STN订购的书籍。有些是家人赠予的，有些则是从他在拉罗谢尔最喜欢的书商纪尧姆·帕维那里购得的。但他写给STN的信件——其中包括11年间订购的59种书籍——足以让我们大致了解他的阅读品味和习惯。这些订单大致遵循以下模式（书目详情见附录）：

In confronting the dossier, the first question to ask is: what did Ranson read? One cannot reconstruct his library, because he owned a great many books that he did not order from the STN. He received some from his family and bought others from Guillaume Pavie, his favorite bookseller in La Rochelle. But his letters to the STN—which include orders for fifty-nine titles over a period of eleven years—provide enough information for one to form a general idea of his taste and reading habits. The orders fall into the following pattern (for bibliographical details, see the appendix):

上述分类与十八世纪图书馆的目录相符，但却遗漏了当时文学作品中的许多常见题材。兰森没有订购任何古典著作、法律著作或自然科学类书籍，只有两卷通俗医学书籍。诚然，他可能从其他渠道获得了这些主题的书籍，尽管他也可以从STN图书馆获得。但他的主要兴趣仅限于以下几个方面：

The above rubrics correspond to the categories in the catalogues of eighteenth-century libraries, but they exclude a good deal of the standard fare in the literature of the time. Ranson did not order any classics, any legal works, or anything in the natural sciences, except two volumes of popular medicine. True, he may have procured books on those subjects from other sources, although he could have got them from the STN. But his main interests were limited to the following topics:

儿童文学与教育学。这些书籍是这份档案中最令人惊讶的部分。尽管在历史学家研究过的（数量确实不多的）十八世纪图书馆中，它们似乎并未占据太多位置，^⁵但它们却占了兰森从STN订购书籍总数的近三分之一。它们的重要性或许可以解释为兰森对自己孩子的关注，但正如我们将看到的，其中还有更深层次的原因。

Children’s literature and pedagogy. These books provide the biggest surprise in the dossier. Although they do not seem to have occupied much of a place in the (admittedly few) eighteenth-century libraries that have been studied by historians,⁵ they represent almost a third of the works that Ranson ordered from the STN. Their importance can be explained by his interest in his own children, but there is more to it than that, as we shall see.

宗教。兰森的信件表明他是一位虔诚的新教徒，而他的著作则暗示他的虔诚已近乎虔敬主义。他对神学毫无兴趣，却渴望圣经——一本新版的基督教新教圣经、诗篇——尤其渴望布道。他在信中不断呼吁“提供好的新布道；法国长期以来都渴望这样的布道。” ⁶他偏爱瑞士和荷兰神职人员的道德说教，这种说教有时让人联想到卢梭笔下萨瓦教区牧师的宗教信仰。

Religion. Ranson’s letters indicate that he was a devout Protestant, and his books suggest that his piety shaded off into pietism. He showed no interest in theology, but he wanted Holy Scripture—a new Protestant edition of the Bible, the Psalms—and especially sermons. He kept calling in his letters for “good new sermons; France has been famished for them for a long time.”⁶ He favored the moralistic preaching of Swiss and Dutch divines, which occasionally summon up the religion of Rousseau’s Savoyard vicar.

历史、游记和一般非虚构类书籍。兰森的宗教信仰并没有阻止他订购《百科全书》或雷纳尔神父那部同样直言不讳、内容包罗万象的《欧洲人在两印度的政体与商业哲学与政治史》。游记和历史书籍是十八世纪图书馆的热门藏书，它们常常成为启蒙运动作家们批判当代社会的平台。兰森甚至购买了两本当时被禁的书籍，这两本书都明确地表达了这种批判：梅西耶的《巴黎画卷》和巴肖蒙的《为文学共和国的历史服务而作的秘密回忆录》。但他避开了STN目录中那些更激进、更露骨的作品，而是专注于那些在浪漫主义前时期日益流行的感伤主义和道德说教类书籍。

History, travel, and general nonfiction. Ranson’s religious principles did not prevent him from ordering the Encyclopédie or the equally outspoken and encyclopedic Histoire philosophique et politique des établissements et du commerce des Européens dans les deux Indes by the abbé Raynal. Travel and history books, a favorite category in eighteenth-century libraries, often provided a screen upon which Enlightenment authors projected criticisms of contemporary society. Ranson even bought two forbidden books that made the criticism explicit: Mercier’s Tableau de Paris and Bachaumont’s Mémoires secrets pour servir à l’histoire de la république des lettres. But he avoided the racier and more radical works in the STN’s catalogue, concentrating instead on the sentimental and moralistic books that were becoming increasingly popular during the preromantic era.

文学作品。在朗松订购的小说中，这些书籍格外引人注目。尽管他也购买了一些十七世纪的经典作品（莫里哀、塞万提斯），但他更偏爱当代作家，例如热内利斯夫人、梅西埃和雷斯蒂夫·德·拉·布雷顿。然而，占据他书架空间最多、在他信件中被反复提及的却是卢梭——朗松称他为“让-雅克的朋友”，尽管让-雅克是他从未谋面、只能通过文字了解的朋友。朗松如饥似渴地阅读着他能找到的所有卢梭的作品。他订购了两套卢梭全集和一套十二卷的遗作。第一版由纳沙泰尔的塞缪尔·福什于1775年出版，是朗松在卢梭生前所能获得的最佳版本，但它只有十一卷八开本。第二卷由日内瓦印刷公司于1782年出版，共三十一卷，收录了大量此前未发表的作品。朗松特意要求将其拆开装订，用线装，“这样就能在收到书后立即尽情阅读，而不用等待那位极其粗心的装订工。” ⁷他对这位作家的了解和对作品的渴望不亚于对作品本身的了解。“先生，非常感谢您，”他在1775年写信给奥斯特瓦尔德，“感谢您如此慷慨地告诉我关于让-雅克朋友的事。每次您能寄给我任何关于他的资料，我都感到非常高兴。” ⁸ 朗松是一位典型的卢梭式读者。但他是如何阅读的呢？

Belles-lettres. Those books stand out in Ranson’s orders for fiction. Although he bought some seventeenth-century classics (Molière, Cervantes), he favored contemporary writers like Mme de Genlis, Mercier, and Restif de la Bretonne. But the one who occupied most of the space on his shelves and most of the discussions in his letters was Rousseau—“l‘Ami Jean-Jacques” as Ranson called him, although Jean-Jacques was a friend whom he had never met and could know only through the printed word. Ranson devoured everything he could find by Rousseau. He ordered two editions of the complete works and a twelve-volume set of the posthumous writings. The first edition, published by Samuel Fauche of Neuchâtel in 1775, was the best Ranson could obtain during Rousseau’s lifetime, but it contained only eleven volumes in octavo. The second, put out by the Société typographique de Genève in 1782, ran to thirty-one volumes and contained a great many previously unpublished works. Ranson ordered it unbound and stitched, “so as to have the full enjoyment of the work as soon as it arrives and not to wait upon the binder, who is very negligent.”⁷ He was as hungry for information about the writer as for copies of the writings. “I thank you, Monsieur,” he wrote to Ostervald in 1775, “for what you were so kind as to tell me about l’Ami Jean-Jacques. You give me great pleasure every time you can send me anything about him.”⁸ Ranson was the perfect Rousseauistic reader. But how did he read?

从阅读的内容到阅读的方式，这是一个极其困难的过渡。我们可以先提出第二个预备问题，间接地探讨这个问题：兰森拿起一本书时是如何看待它的？十八世纪的书籍作为实物与今天截然不同，读者对它们的感知也大相径庭。

To pass from the what to the how of reading is an extremely difficult step. One can approach it indirectly by posing a second preliminary question: how did Ranson look at a book when he took it in his hands? Books as physical objects were very different in the eighteenth century from what they are today, and their readers perceived them differently.

从朗森写给STN的信件中，我们可以推测出他的看法，因为他经常讨论书籍的装帧。例如，在着手修订《圣经》新版之前，奥斯特瓦尔德曾向他询问拉罗谢尔方面更倾向于哪种装帧；朗森在咨询了朋友们的意见后回复道：“大家都赞成对开本。对于这本神圣书籍的目标读者来说，对开本更显庄严雄伟。” ⁹ 在讨论重印《基础地理教程》的项目时，朗森对排版细节表现出极大的关注：“我希望新版能采用比第三版更精美的字体和更优质的纸张，因为第三版在这两方面远逊于在伯尔尼印刷的第二版。” ¹⁰他尤其重视书籍的原材料。“尽可能使用优质的纸张，”他在订单中反复强调。¹¹他还强调了纸张、印刷和装订协调一致的重要性。当奥斯特瓦尔德请他检查STN从拉罗谢尔一家破产书商那里追回的一些书籍时，他报告说：“你怎能花3里弗尔15苏斯来装订这些印刷如此糟糕、纸张如此劣质的书，而你却只卖15苏斯一页一页？我或许最终能找到愿意接受巴桑装订（一种相对便宜的羊皮装订）的人，但其他的书我几乎不抱希望了。” ¹²

Ranson’s perceptions can be surmised from his letters to the STN, for he often discussed the physical aspects of books. For example, before undertaking a new edition of the Bible, Ostervald sounded him out on the format that would be preferred in La Rochelle; and after consulting his friends Ranson replied, “Everyone pronounced in favor of the in-folio. It is more majestic and more imposing in the eyes of the multitude for whom this divine book is intended.”⁹ Ranson showed a great concern for typographical niceties in discussing a project to reprint a Cours de géographie élémentaire: “I hope it will be done with more handsome type and finer paper than that of the third edition, which in those respects is far inferior to the second edition printed in Bern.”¹⁰ He especially cared about the raw material of books. “Handsome paper so far as can be had,” he reiterated in his orders.¹¹ And he emphasized the importance of harmonizing paper, print, and binding. When Ostervald asked him to inspect some books that the STN had recovered from a bankrupt dealer in La Rochelle, he reported: “How could you have spent three livres fifteen sous on the binding for books printed so badly on such bad paper, which you sell for fifteen sous in sheets? I might eventually be able to find someone willing to take those in basan [a relatively cheap sheepskin binding], but I have little hope for the others.”¹²

此类评论在十八世纪十分常见。STN经常收到顾客的来信，抱怨印刷粗糙；也收到书商的来信，担心字体或纸张的选择会影响书籍的销售。例如，STN向拉罗谢尔的朗松书店老板帕维推荐了《自然系统》一书后，收到的回信表明，书籍的材质质量与内容同样重要：

Such comments were common in the eighteenth century. The STN often received letters from customers who complained about sloppy printing and from booksellers who worried that the choice of a type face or a kind of paper would make a book unsellable. For example, after offering the Système de la nature to Pavie, Ranson’s bookseller in La Rochelle, the STN received a reply indicating that the material quality of the book mattered as much as its intellectual content:

如今书籍批量生产，面向大众读者，这种对印刷的重视也随之消失。十八世纪的书籍都是手工制作的。每一张纸都经过繁复的工序单独制作，同一册书里的每一张纸都各不相同。每一个字母、每一个单词、每一行文字都遵循着一套独特的艺术形式，让工匠有机会展现自己的个性。书籍本身就是独立的个体，每一本书都拥有其独特的特征。旧制度下的读者会小心翼翼地阅读书籍，因为他们不仅关注文学作品的内容，也关注其中蕴含的信息。他们会用手指触摸纸张，感受其重量、透明度和弹性（当时有一整套词汇用来描述纸张的审美特性，在十九世纪之前，纸张通常占到书籍制造成本的至少一半）。他们会研究字体设计，检查间距，核对套印，评估版面布局，并仔细审视印刷的均匀性。他们会像我们品尝一杯葡萄酒那样，细细品读一本书。因为他关注的是纸上的印记，而不仅仅是透过印记去理解其含义。一旦他完全沉浸在一本书中，感受着它的所有物质特性，他就会静下心来阅读。

This typographical consciousness has disappeared now that books are mass-produced for a mass audience. In the eighteenth century they were made by hand. Every sheet of paper was produced individually by an elaborate procedure and differed from every other sheet in the same volume. Every letter, word, and line was composed according to an art that gave the artisan a chance to express his individuality. Books themselves were individuals, each copy possessing its own character. The reader of the Old Regime approached them with care, for he paid attention to the stuff of literature as well as its message. He would finger the paper in order to gauge its weight, translucence, and elasticity (a whole vocabulary existed to describe the esthetic qualities of paper, which usually represented at least half the manufacturing cost of a book before the nineteenth century.) He would study the design of the type, examine the spacing, check the register, evaluate the layout, and scrutinize the evenness of the printing. He would sample a book the way we might taste a glass of wine; for he looked at the impressions on the paper, not merely across them to their meaning. And once he had possessed himself fully of a book, in all its physicality, he would settle down to read it.

这让我们回到最初的问题：朗森是如何阅读的？答案似乎仍然遥不可及，但我们可以另辟蹊径，探寻十八世纪学校的阅读教学方式以及十八世纪教科书中的描述。幸运的是，朗森在信中提到了他最喜欢的教科书。他订购了好几本，供家人和朋友使用。这本书的书名（译成英文）表明，它不仅传授了掌握文字的方法，也展现了一种世界观：《阅读、拼写和法语发音的真正原则，附标点符号小论、语法和法语韵律入门，以及适合提供各领域简明易懂概念的不同阅读选段》，作者：尼古拉斯-安托万·维亚尔。

That brings us back to our initial question: how did Ranson read? The answer may seem as far away as ever, but we can pursue it down another path, one that leads toward an understanding of reading as it was taught in eighteenth-century schools and depicted in eighteenth-century textbooks. Fortunately, Ranson mentioned his own favorite textbook in his letters. He ordered several copies of it, for the use of his family and his friends. Its title (translated into English) suggests that it conveyed a view of the world as well as a means of mastering the printed word: The true principles of reading, of spelling, and of French pronunciation, followed by a little treatise on punctuation, the first elements of grammar and of French prosody, and by different reading selections suitable for providing simple and easy notions of all the branches of our knowledge, by Nicolas-Antoine Viard.

维亚尔的教科书很可能对几代法国读者产生了影响。法国国家图书馆藏有该书的五个十八世纪版本和十九个1800年至1830年间的版本。兰松本人是否通过这本教科书学习阅读尚存疑问，因为现存最早的版本出版于1763年，当时他已年满十五岁。但他的信件表明，他在纳沙泰尔求学期间使用过这本书——大概是为了复习语法——而且他打算用它来教自己的孩子阅读。然而，这本书的一个方面令他无法接受——其极端正统的天主教教义，这在一些选读章节中体现得尤为明显。¹⁴奥斯特瓦尔德肯定为纳沙泰尔的学生删去了那些段落，因为兰松在订购这本书时特别注明，他想要“几本维亚尔的《阅读原理》，最好是经过您修改过的版本”。15^后来，他在一封信中又强调，他订购的是 “为改革派修正后的《阅读原理》” ^。16我未能找到这本新教维亚尔著作，但古典维亚尔著作，只要删去阅读练习中的一些宗教文本，似乎足以作为研究十八世纪阅读的起点。

Viard’s textbook probably left a mark on several generations of French readers. The Bibliothèque Nationale contains five editions of it from the eighteenth century and nineteen editions from the period 1800 to 1830. It seems doubtful that Ranson himself learned to read from the textbook, as the earliest surviving copy comes from 1763, when he had already reached the age of fifteen. But his letters indicate that he used it during his schooling in Neuchâtel—presumably as an aid for reviewing grammar—and that he meant to use it to teach his own children how to read. One aspect of it, however, was insupportable to him—its ultraorthodox Catholicism, which stands out clearly in some of the reading selections. ¹⁴ Ostervald must have expurgated those passages for the students in Neuchâtel, because in ordering the book Ranson specified that he wanted “some copies of the Principes de la lecture by Viard that I would be glad to have with the changes you have made in it.”¹⁵ And in a later letter he stressed that he was ordering the “Principes de lecture corrigés pour les réformés.”¹⁶ I have not been able to locate this Protestant Viard, but the classical Viard, minus some of the religious texts among its reading exercises, seems adequate as a starting point for studying eighteenth-century reading.

维亚尔本人从最小的语音单位入手。他展示了这些单位如何与字母、音节和单词联系起来，由简入繁，避免一切不规则之处，从而使语音与印刷符号之间的联系牢牢地印在学生的脑海中。他坚持认为，阅读必须通过口语学习；写作可以稍后再学。“整个教学过程在于简化语音，而不是拼写；这是让儿童理解语音组合意义的唯一方法。” ¹⁷维亚尔要求进行一些记忆；但尽管他进行了大量的练习和打乱字母顺序的练习，他最关心的是引导孩子思考：“记忆力很容易记住多次阅读的内容；因此，在让孩子阅读一段短文后，就可以开始向他提问，帮助他理解。” ¹⁸ 对维亚尔来说，阅读并非被动的。他不认为阅读是一个机械的解码过程，而是一个积极的智力建构过程。

Viard himself starts with the smallest units of sound. He shows how they are linked with letters, syllables, and words, progressing from the simple to the complex and avoiding all irregularities, so that the connections between sounds and typographical symbols become firmly fixed in the student’s mind. Reading must be learned orally, he insists; writing can come later. “The entire operation consists in simplifying the sounds and in not doing any spelling; it is the only way to make the combination of sounds meaningful to children.”¹⁷ Viard requires some memorizing; but for all his drills and scrambled alphabets, his main concern is to get the child to think: “The memory easily retains things read several times; so after having had a child read a short passage, one can begin to question him about it and to help him understand it.”¹⁸ Reading is not passive for Viard. He does not see it as a mechanistic process of deciphering but as an active construction of the intellect.

然而，凡是希望从维亚尔那里找到理解书籍的现代策略的人，都会失望而归。他完全没有提及文本阐释或构建诠释的方法。他全神贯注于从字母组合中提取意义的问题，专注于如下练习：¹⁹

Nonetheless, Viard will disappoint anyone who consults him in the hope of finding a contemporary strategy for understanding books. He says nothing about explication de texte or ways of formulating interpretations. Wholly absorbed with the problem of extracting sense from combinations of letters, he concentrates on exercises like the following:¹⁹

他确实提供了一些文本，但这些文本几乎无法阐明他的观点；因为它们充斥着意识形态的暗流。例如，他阅读练习中的《天使的问候》和《罪的忏悔》虽然剔除了含糊不清的音节，却被灌输了反宗教改革的教条。而其他选段——《颂词》、《家谱》、《政治》、《世界报》——读起来就像是在为社会和政治现状辩护。维亚尔希望教师在与学生的讨论中阐明这些主题的意义：“目的是让孩子们对艺术、科学、宗教、战争、贸易以及其他所有需要清晰明确概念的事物有一些简单的了解。对孩子来说，重要的是老师停下来，与他一起思考每一个主题，仔细研读。每一个主题都会像种子一样发芽，如果精心培育，就能使孩子的思想变得丰富而富有创造力。” ²⁰这段文字的保守倾向显而易见，但其中的比喻却出自《爱弥儿》。维亚尔和卢梭一样，强调教师耐心和温柔的重要性。孩子们不应该被灌输无用的信息，而应该根据自身能力的自然发展规律来学习。最重要的是，他们应该学会做一个好人。因为阅读是一种精神修行：它训练的不是文学素养，而是人生阅历。

He does provide some texts, but they hardly illustrate his point; for they are saturated with ideological undercurrents. Thus “La Salutation Angélique” and “La Confession des péchés” in his reading exercises are stripped of ambiguous syllables but loaded down with Counter-Reformation doctrine. And other selections—“Blason,” “Généalogie,” “Politique,” “Le Monde”—read like apologies for the status quo in social and political questions. Viard expected the teacher to bring out the significance of such subjects in discussions with the pupils: “The object is to give the children some simple notions about the arts, sciences, religion, war, trade, and everything else about which one needs to have clear and precise ideas. It is important for the child that the master pause and consider with him each of these subjects, turning them over so to speak beneath his gaze. Each will germinate like a seed, which if cultivated skillfully will make his mind rich and fertile.”²⁰ There is no mistaking the conservative character of the text, but the metaphor could have come from Emile. Like Rousseau, Viard insists on the importance of patience and gentleness on the part of the teacher. Instead of being crammed with useless information, children should learn according to the natural development of their faculties. Above all, they should learn to be good. For reading is a kind of spiritual exercise: it trains one not for literature but for life.

因此，尽管维亚尔的入门读物带有正统色彩，但对于卢梭式的读者来说，它或许颇具吸引力。然而，它并未揭示阅读的实际过程。事实上，它暗示十八世纪法国的儿童学习拼读单词的方式与今天几乎相同。卢梭本人对这种教学方法嗤之以鼻。他在《爱弥儿》中坚持认为，孩子应该在学习成熟后再学习阅读，无需任何人为的练习：“任何方法都适合他。” ²¹然而，阅读是贯穿卢梭​​所有作品的主题，它令他着迷。如果我们能够理解他对阅读的理解，或许就能超越维亚尔的论述，找到第三个角度来探讨十八世纪的阅读问题。

Despite its orthodoxy, then, Viard’s primer might well have seemed attractive to a Rousseauistic reader. But it does not reveal much about the actual process of reading. In fact, it suggests that children learned to sound out words in eighteenth-century France pretty much as they do today. Rousseau himself had no patience for such pedagogy. He insisted in Emile that the child learn to read late, when he was ripe for learning, without artificial exercises: “Any method will do for him.”²¹ Yet reading is a theme that appears everywhere in Rousseau’s works. It obsessed him. If we can understand his understanding of it, we might be able to get beyond the point where Viard left us and to find a third angle from which to attack the problem of eighteenth-century reading.

卢梭在《忏悔录》的开头几页中谈到了他自己是如何开始阅读的：

Rousseau discussed his own induction into reading in the first pages of the Confessions:

他们读完了所有的小说后，便从让-雅克母亲亲戚的藏书中借阅博絮埃、莫里哀、拉布吕耶尔、奥维德和普鲁塔克的作品。让-雅克的母亲出身于比他父亲（一位钟表匠）更有文化修养的家庭。父亲在店里工作时，儿子就给他读书，父子俩一起讨论书中的内容。让-雅克的想象力被点燃了，尤其当他朗诵普鲁塔克的诗句时更是如此。他仿佛化身为书中的英雄，在日内瓦的公寓里上演着古代的戏剧，仿佛自己亲身经历了雅典和罗马的种种历史。事后回想起来，他觉得这段经历对他的一生都产生了深远的影响。一方面，他始终无法区分文学与现实，他的头脑里充满了“奇异而浪漫的想法，这些想法无论经历还是反思都无法消除”。另一方面，他也培养了一种极其独立的精神：“正是由于沉浸于阅读以及由此引发的与父亲的谈话，我才培养出了那种自由的共和精神，那种骄傲而桀骜不驯的性格，这种性格与屈服和奴役如此格格不入，而屈服和奴役却成了我一生的折磨。” ²³

Having exhausted their stock of novels, they took volumes of Bossuet, Molière, La Bruyère, Ovid, and Plutarch from the libraries of the relatives of Jean-Jacques’s mother, who came from a more cultivated milieu than his father, a watchmaker. While the father worked in his shop, the son read to him and they discussed the readings. Jean-Jacques’s imagination caught fire, especially when he declaimed from Plutarch. He became the heroes that he read about, and he played out the dramas of antiquity in his Genevan apartment as if he had lived them in Athens and Rome. In retrospect it seemed to him that this experience had marked him for life. On the one hand, he never learned to distinguish between literature and reality, having filled his mind with“bizarre and romantic notions, which experience and reflection never cured me of.” On the other, he developed a fiercely independent spirit: “From this absorption in reading and the talks to which it gave rise between my father and me, I developed that free and republican spirit, that proud and indomitable character, so incompatible with subjection and servitude, that has been the torment of my life.”²³

卢梭的伟大著作《新爱洛伊丝》中的人物 都以同样的热情投入阅读。由于这是一部书信体小说，情节通过书信往来展开。生活与阅读密不可分，爱情与情书的写作也密不可分。事实上，恋人们互相传授阅读之道，正如他们互相传授爱情之道一样。圣普雷教导朱莉：“少读，多思考，或者彼此深入探讨，这才是彻底消化阅读之道。” ²⁴与此同时，他也从朱莉身上学习阅读。就像《爱弥儿》的老师一样，他为这位学生设计了一种特别适合其独立精神的“方法”：“……对于你们这些阅读时投入远多于从中汲取的人，对于你们这些思维活跃的人，你们会把读过的书再解读成另一本，有时甚至是更好的书。这样，我们就能交流思想。我会告诉你们别人对这个主题的看法；你们会告诉我你们自己的想法；而我常常会在课后比你们学到更多。” ²⁵这就是卢梭从父亲那里学习阅读的方式——也是他后来与瓦伦斯夫人一起阅读的方式：“有时我会陪她一起读。我从中获得了极大的乐趣；这让我练就了良好的阅读能力……我们一起读《布吕耶尔》：她更喜欢这本书，而不是《拉罗什福科》……当她从文本中汲取道德教训时，有时会陷入沉思，稍微走神；但我时不时地亲吻她的嘴唇或手，耐心地听着，她的走神并不会让我感到困扰。” ²⁶ 阅读、生活和爱情，对于作家来说，它们是不可分割的，他更多地沉浸在自己的想象中，而不是在日常生活中。

The characters in Rousseau’s great novel, La Nouvelle Héloïse, throw themselves into reading with the same abandon. Because it is an epistolary novel, the plot unfolds through the exchange of letters. Living cannot be distinguished from reading, nor loving from the writing of love letters. Indeed, the lovers teach one another how to read just as they teach one another love. Saint-Preux instructs Julie: “To read little and to meditate a great deal upon our reading, or to talk it over extensively between ourselves, that is the way to thoroughly digest it.”²⁴ At the same time, he learns to read from her. Like the tutor of Emile, he devises a “method” especially suited to the independent spirit of his pupil: “... to you who put into your reading more than you take out of it and whose active mind makes another and sometimes better book of the book you read. In this way we will exchange our ideas. I will tell you what others have thought about the subject; you will tell me what you yourself think about it; and I will often leave the lesson better instructed than you.”²⁵ This was how Rousseau learned to read from his father—and how he later read with Mme de Warens: “Sometimes I read beside her. I took the greatest pleasure in it; it exercised me in reading well.... We read La Bruyère together: it pleased her more than La Rochefoucauld.... When she drew morals from the text, she sometimes lost the thread a little in her reverie; but kissing her from time to time on the mouth or the hands, I was patient, and her interruptions did not bother me.”²⁶ Reading, living, and loving, they were inseparable to the writer who lived more intensely in his imagination than he did in the rounds of daily life.

因此，“方法”的头号敌人其实也有自己的方法，那就是从父亲那里学来的。这方法的核心在于“消化”书籍，使之融入生活。但卢梭并非仅仅描述他自己以及书中人物的阅读体验，他引导读者的阅读，向他们展示如何解读他的作品，引导他们进入文本，用他的修辞手法指引他们，并让他们扮演某种角色。卢梭甚至试图教读者如何阅读，并通过阅读触及他们的内心世界。这种策略需要打破传统文学的束缚。卢梭没有像伏尔泰那样躲在叙事背后操纵人物，而是全身心地投入到作品中，并期望读者也这样做。他改变了作家与读者、读者与文本之间的关系。如果我们能够对这种转变形成一个恰当的理解，就应该能够想象出卢梭所设想的理想读者，然后将这个理想与现实中的读者——让·朗松——进行比较。

Thus the great enemy of “method” really had one of his own, the one he had learned from his father. It consisted in “digesting” books so thoroughly that they became absorbed in life. But Rousseau did not merely describe reading as he and the characters of his books experienced it. He directed the reading of his readers. He showed them how to approach his books. He guided them into the texts, oriented them by his rhetoric, and made them play a certain role. Rousseau even attempted to teach his readers how to read and, through reading, tried to touch their inner lives. This strategy required a break with conventional literature. Instead of hiding behind the narrative and pulling strings to manipulate the characters in the manner of Voltaire, Rousseau threw himself into his works and expected the reader to do the same. He transformed the relation between writer and reader, between reader and text. If we can form an adequate idea of this transformation, we should be able to picture the ideal reader envisaged by Rousseau and then to compare that ideal with an actual individual, the reader Jean Ranson.

不妨考察两篇关键文本，即《新爱洛伊丝》 的两篇序言。在这两篇序言中，卢梭对阅读以及如何阅读他的小说进行了较为详尽的探讨。这两篇序言——一篇是对本书的简要介绍，另一篇则是卢梭以自居向一位持怀疑态度的评论家辩护的对话——都直面了任何卢梭读者都可能提出的质疑：让-雅克怎么会做出出版小说这种“邪恶”的事情呢？这个问题在今天看来或许荒谬，但在当时，小说被视为一种道德威胁，尤其当小说涉及爱情且读者是年轻女性时，这种担忧更是根深蒂固。卢梭曾因谴责一切艺术和科学对道德的影响而声名狼藉。然而，他却厚颜无耻地在最堕落的文学作品的扉页上展示了自己的名字——这不仅仅是一部小说，而是一个家庭教师引诱他的学生，后来又与她的丈夫进行三人性行为的故事！

Consider two key texts, the dual prefaces to La Nouvelle Héloïse, where Rousseau discusses reading and the way to read his novel at some length. Both prefaces—one is a brief introduction to the book, the other is a dialogue in which Rousseau represents himself defending his work to a skeptical critic—confront an objection that could be expected from any reader of Rousseau: how could Jean-Jacques do anything as wicked as to publish a novel? The question may seem absurd today, but it fit squarely into the preoccupations of an age in which novels were seen as a moral danger, especially when they dealt with love and their readers were young ladies. Rousseau had won notoriety by denouncing all the arts and sciences for their effect on morals. Yet here he was, shamelessly displaying his name on the title page of the most corrupting kind of literature—not merely a novel, but a story about a tutor who seduces his pupil and later joins her husband in a ménage à trois!

卢梭在第一篇序言的第一句话中就正面回应了这一反对意见：“剧院对大城市来说是必要的，小说对腐败的民族来说是必要的。” ²⁷这一论点与他在《致达朗贝尔的信》中的观点遥相呼应。《致达朗贝尔的信》谴责剧院、小说以及所有现代文学作品，包括百科全书派的作品，认为它们会破坏像日内瓦这样健康的共和国的公民美德，但也承认它们在像法国这样衰落的君主制国家中可能具有一定的用途。卢梭在1757/58年的重大危机期间创作了《新爱洛伊丝》和《致达朗贝尔的信》 ，这场危机导致他与狄德罗和启蒙思想家党决裂。但这两本书都表达了一个主题——当代文化的腐败本质——这个主题可以追溯到使卢梭成名的著作《 论科学与艺术》（1750年）。这是一个贯穿他一生的主题，也是他在创作现代版《爱洛伊丝》时必须面对的问题。这位伟大的小说家一直以来都反对小说。那么，他又如何能写出一部小说呢？

Rousseau met the objection head-on in the first sentence of the first preface: “Theaters are necessary for large cities and novels for corrupt peoples.”²⁷ The argument echoed his Lettre a d‘Alembert sur les spectacles, which condemned theatres, novels, and all modern literature, including the work of the Encyclopedists, for undermining civic virtue in healthy republics like Geneva, yet conceded that they could be of some use in decadent monarchies like France. Rousseau wrote both La Nouvelle Héloïse and the Lettre à d’Alembert during the great crisis of 1757/58, which resulted in his break with Diderot and the party of the philosophes. But both books expressed a theme—the corruptive nature of contemporary culture—that went back to the work that first made Rousseau famous, the Discours sur les sciences et les arts (1750). It was a theme that weighed on his whole life and that had to be faced at the point of entry into the story of the modern Héloïse. This great novelist had always preached against novels. How then could he write one?

卢梭在序言中的回答看似简单：“这不是小说。” ²⁸这是一部书信集，卢梭以编辑的身份呈现，正如扉页上的副标题和“编辑”署名所表明的那样：“一对居住在阿尔卑斯山脚下小镇的恋人的信件。由J.-J.卢梭收集并出版。” 但这种伪装无法让任何人满意，尤其是卢梭本人，他为自己的作品感到自豪，并忍不住谈论它：“虽然我在这里只是个编辑，但这本书是我亲自参与的，我并不隐瞒这一点。我是否包办了一切？所有的信件都是虚构的吗？上流社会的读者们，这与你们何干？对你们来说，这当然是虚构的。” ²⁹在这故作姿态的背后，卢梭巧妙地将问题从他自身扮演的角色转移到了读者应扮演的角色。对于社会文化精英（即“世界”，这个词对卢梭和其他文人墨客而言意义非凡）而言，这本书会显得矫揉造作；但对于那些能够以纯真之眼阅读它的人来说，它本身就是真理。卢梭将这真理置于何处？尽可能远离沙龙社交：“这本书并非为在社交圈（即‘世界’）中流传而作，只适合极少数读者……它会令宗教狂热分子、放荡不羁之徒和哲学家们感到不悦。” ³⁰理想的读者必须能够摆脱文学的惯例以及社会的偏见。只有这样，他才能按照卢梭规定的方式进入故事：“凡决心阅读这些信件的人，必须先做好心理准备，忍受它们语言的不规范、文风的夸张，以及用华丽辞藻表达的思想的平庸。他必须事先告诉自己，写这些信的人并非法国人，并非世故之人，并非学院派学者或哲学家 ，而是外乡人、外国人、隐士、年轻人，几乎是孩童，他们在浪漫的想象中，将自己天真无邪的思想狂热误认为是哲学。” ³¹

Rousseau’s reply in the prefaces is deceptively simple: “This novel is not a novel.”²⁸ It is a collection of letters, which Rousseau presents in the role of an editor, as the subtitle and “editor’s” name on the title page make clear: “Letters of two lovers living in a small town at the foot of the Alps. Collected and published by J.-J. Rousseau.” But that pretense would satisfy no one, least of all Rousseau, who was proud of his work and could not refrain from talking about it: “Although I have only the title of an editor here, I have worked on this book myself, and I do not hide that fact. Have I done the whole thing, and is the entire correspondence a fiction? Readers from high society [gens du monde], what does it matter to you? For you it is certainly fiction.”²⁹ Behind this coquetterie, Rousseau strategically shifts the question from the role played by him to the role expected of the reader. The book will seem contrived to members of the socio-cultural elite (le monde, an expression charged with meaning for Rousseau and other men of letters); but to those who can read it with innocent eyes, it will appear as truth itself. Where does Rousseau locate this truth? As far away from salon society as possible: “This book is not made to circulate in society [le monde] and is suitable for very few readers.... It will displease religious bigots, libertines, and philosophes.”³⁰ The ideal reader must be able to divest himself of the conventions of literature as well as the prejudices of society. Only then can he enter into the story in the manner prescribed by Rousseau: “Whoever resolves to read these letters must arm himself with patience about the incorrectness of their language, the overblown character of their style, the ordinary quality of the ideas expressed in their inflated phrasing. He must say to himself in advance that those who wrote them are not French, not sophisticates, not academicians nor philosophes but rather provincials, foreigners, recluses, young people, almost children, who in their romantic imaginations take the innocent frenzy of their minds to be philosophy.”³¹

这些区别带有社会和政治色彩，因为卢梭将文学视为旧制度特有的权力体系中的一个组成部分。他摒弃了文学，包括所有形式的文学作品以及 上流社会；因此，他与启蒙哲学家们决裂了。在他看来，狄德罗、达朗贝尔和其他百科全书派人士属于剧院和沙龙的时尚世界。哲学本身也成为了一种时尚，是巴黎世家精致优雅的极致体现；随着哲学传播到巴黎以外，它危及了政治肌体中最健康的部分。达朗贝尔在《百科全书》中关于日内瓦的条目 正是这一过程的缩影。该条目通过嘲讽那些反对伏尔泰在日内瓦建立剧院计划的守旧清教徒，表明文化毒瘤正在侵蚀美德的最后堡垒——加尔文的共和国，以及卢梭的共和国。这篇文章直击^要害，不仅因为他认同自己的祖国，更因为威胁祖国的疾病也摧残了他。难道他每远离最初的纯真一步，不就更加堕落吗？难道他没有试图闯入上流社会吗？难道他没有利用音乐、戏剧、文学和哲学作为进入上流社会的途径吗？他亲身实践了他自己提出的公式：文化=腐败。因此，他发明了另一种文化形式——反文学，通过直接诉诸于不谙世事的人们来捍卫美德。卢梭在《新爱洛伊丝》中找到了他先知般的声音，但他只对那些有耳可听的人说话——实际上，这意味着对那些有眼可读的人说话。

These distinctions have a social and political edge to them, for Rousseau saw literature as an element in a power system peculiar to the Old Regime. He rejected it, all of it, belles-lettres along with the beau monde; and in doing so he broke with the philosophes. In his eyes, Diderot, d‘Alembert, and the other Encyclopedists belonged to the fashionable world of theaters and salons. Philosophy itself had become a fashion, the ultimate in Parisian sophistication; and as it spread beyond Paris, it endangered the healthiest segments of the body politic. D’Alembert’s article on Geneva in the Encyclopédie epitomized this process. By deriding the old-fashioned puritans who opposed Voltaire’s project to establish a theater in their city, it showed that the cultural cancer was attacking the last bastion of virtue, Calvin’s republic—and Rousseau’s. The article cut “Jean-Jacques Rousseau, citizen of Geneva”³² to the quick, not merely because he identified with his fatherland but also because the disease that threatened it had also ravaged him. Had he not sunk deeper into depravity with every step that led away from his original innocence? Had he not attempted to break into le monde? And had he not used music, theater, literature, and philosophy as a means of entry? He had lived the formula he invented: culture = corruption. So he would invent another cultural form, an antiliterary literature, in which he could defend the cause of virtue by appealing directly to the unsophisticated. Rousseau found his prophetic voice in La Nouvelle Héloïse, but he spoke only to those who had ears to hear—which in fact meant those with eyes to read.

因此， 《新爱洛伊丝》需要一种新的阅读方式，这种阅读方式的成功程度与读者与巴黎上流社会的精神距离成正比。“在道德方面，我认为没有任何阅读对社会名流有用……一个人离商业、大城市、拥挤的社交聚会越远，（道德上有效 的）阅读障碍就越少。在某种程度上，书籍可以发挥一定的作用。当一个人独居时，他不会为了炫耀自己的阅读而匆匆读完一本书；他会减少阅读种类，更多地思考书中的内容。由于书籍的影响较少受到外界因素的削弱，它们对内心的影响更大。” ³³这回应了狄德罗那句可怕的格言，正是这句话导致他与卢梭决裂：“只有恶人才会独居。” ³⁴卢梭的修辞在两个孤独的个体——作家和读者——之间开辟了一条新的沟通渠道，并重新定义了他们的角色。卢梭就是让-雅克，日内瓦市民，美德的先知。读者则可能是外省青年、乡村绅士、被上流社会礼仪束缚的女子、被排除在文艺复兴之外的工匠——身份并不重要，只要他或她热爱美德，能够理解心灵的语言。

La Nouvelle Héloïse therefore required a new kind of reading, one that would succeed in proportion to the reader’s spiritual distance from Parisian high society. “In moral matters, I hold that there is no reading that can be of use to society people [gens du monde].... The further one moves away from business, big cities, crowded social gatherings, the more the obstacles [to morally effective reading] diminish. At a certain point, books can have some usefulness. When one lives alone, one does not hurry through books in order to parade one’s reading; one varies them less and meditates on them more. And as their effect is less mitigated by outside influences, they have a greater influence within.”³³ Here was a reply to Diderot’s terrible phrase, which had precipitated his break with Rousseau: “Only the evil man lives alone.”³⁴ Rousseau’s rhetoric opened up a new channel of communication between two lonely beings, the writer and the reader, and rearranged their roles. Rousseau would be Jean-Jacques, citizen of Geneva and prophet of virtue. The reader would be a provincial youth, a country gentleman, a woman stifled by the refined conventions of society, an artisan excluded from rennement—it did not matter, provided he or she could love virtue and understand the language of the heart.

因此，卢梭并非要求读者努力把自己变成一个瑞士农民，而是要求他们摒弃文学和社会的主流价值观。任何想要真正理解这些情书的人，都必须在精神上将自己置于“阿尔卑斯山脚下”，在那里，文学的繁文缛节毫无意义。这些信件并非为了“取悦”巴黎人——“取悦”在十七世纪是一种被理想化的精致——而是为了让情感自由驰骋。

Thus Rousseau did not demand that the reader try to turn himself into a Swiss peasant but rather that he reject the dominant values of literature and society. Anyone who wanted to read the lovers’ letters as they deserved to be read would have to place himself spiritually “at the foot of the Alps,” where literary niceties made no sense. The letters were not written to “please” in Paris—plaire being a refinement idealized in the seventeenth century—but to give free rein to feeling.

朱莉和圣普雷的信件之所以缺乏文采，是因为它们真挚坦诚。它们与文学无关，因为它们真实无误。如同音乐一般，它们传递着灵魂之间纯粹的情感：“它们不再是信件，而是赞歌。” ³⁶ 卢梭为读者提供了通往这种真理的途径，但前提是读者必须设身处地地站在通信者的角度，在精神上成为一个乡下人、一个隐士、一个异乡人、一个孩子。为了做到这一点，读者必须抛弃成人世界的文化包袱，重新学习阅读，就像让-雅克当年跟随父亲阅读那样，他的父亲懂得如何“比你更像个孩子”。因此，卢梭式的阅读将打破布瓦洛在古典时期鼎盛时期所确立的传统。它将彻底革新读者与文本之间的关系，并开启通往浪漫主义的道路。与此同时，它也复兴了一种似乎在十六、十七世纪盛行的阅读方式：为了吸收未经媒介的上帝圣言而阅读。卢梭要求人们像对待神圣真理的先知那样去阅读他的作品，而朗松也正是这样理解他的：因此，朗松的命令中对宗教文学的强调并没有与他的卢梭主义相矛盾，反而与之相辅相成。卢梭式阅读与它的宗教先驱——无论是加尔文主义、詹森主义还是虔敬主义——的区别在于，它号召人们去阅读最受质疑的文学形式——小说——如同阅读圣经一般。通过利用这一悖论，卢梭将重塑世界。

The letters of Julie and Saint-Preux lack refinement because they are genuine. They have nothing to do with literature because they are true. Like music, they communicate pure emotion from one soul to another: “They are no longer letters; they are hymns.”³⁶ Rousseau offered the reader access to this kind of truth, but only if he would put himself in the place of the correspondents and become in spirit a provincial, a recluse, a foreigner, and a child. In order to do so, the reader would have to jettison the cultural baggage of the adult world and learn to read all over again, as Jean-Jacques had read with his father, who knew how to become “more of a child than you.” Thus Rousseauistic reading would explode the conventions established at the height of the classical period by Boileau. It would revolutionize the relation between reader and text, and open the way to romanticism. At the same time, it would revive a way of reading that seems to have prevailed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: reading in order to absorb the unmediated Word of God. Rousseau demanded to be read as if he were a prophet of divine truth, and Ranson understood him in that way: thus the emphasis on religious literature in Ranson’s orders did not contradict his Rousseauism but rather complemented it. What set Rousseauistic reading apart from its religious antecedents—whether they were Calvinist, Jansenist, or pietistic—was the summons to read the most suspect form of literature, the novel, as if it were the Bible. By exploiting this paradox, Rousseau would regenerate le monde.

但这种新的阅读方式在《新爱洛伊丝》的序言中遇到了另一个悖论。卢梭坚持认为这些情书信件是真实存在的，但这些信件却是他自己写的，运用了他独有的修辞手法。他将自己的文本呈现为两个灵魂之间直接的交流——“心与心如此对话” ³⁷ ——然而，实际的交流却发生在读者和卢梭本人之间。这种模棱两可之处有可能破坏他想要建立的作家与读者之间的新关系。一方面，它使卢梭的立场显得站不住脚，仿佛他只是一个编辑；另一方面，它让读者如同旁观者一般，置身事外。当然，这种模棱两可之处，以及浓重的窥视意味，在所有书信体小说中都存在。这种文体在法国由来已久，并因理查森的流行而复兴。但卢梭无法躲在文体惯例的背后，因为他意在使自己的作品成为非文学的、“真实的”。他不能否认自己是这些信件的作者，否则就违背了真理；他也不能承认信件中蕴含的精湛技艺，否则就会破坏其效果。

But the new style of reading ran into another paradox, as it struggled for expression in the preface to La Nouvelle Héloïse. Rousseau insisted on the authenticity of the lovers’ letters, but he wrote them himself, using all the devices of a rhetoric that he alone could command. He presented his text as the unmediated communication of two souls—“It is thus that the heart speaks to the heart”³⁷—yet the actual communication took place between the reader and Rousseau himself. This ambiguity threatened to undercut the new relation between writer and reader that he wanted to establish. On the one hand, it tended to falsify Rousseau’s position by making him appear as a mere editor. On the other, it left the reader looking on from the sideline, virtually as a voyeur. To be sure, such ambiguities, and a heavy dose of voyeurism, exist in all epistolary novels. The genre had been established long ago in France and was undergoing a revival, thanks to the popularity of Richardson. But Rousseau could not hide behind the conventions of the genre because he meant his text to be nonliterary and “true.” He could not deny his authorship of the letters without offending truth, and he could not acknowledge the careful craftsmanship that went into them without spoiling their effect.

在现代读者看来，这个问题或许看似一个伪命题，但它却困扰着卢梭的同代人。许多《 新爱洛伊丝》的读者相信，也渴望相信这些信件的真实性。卢梭早已洞悉了他们的需求。因此，他让提问者——第二篇序言或对话序言中的博学之士“N”——反复追问：“这些信件是真实的，还是虚构的？” ³⁸ “N”始终无法释怀；正如他所解释的，这个问题“折磨”着他。³⁹通过让“N”倾诉自己的疑虑，卢梭似乎与读者达成了和解，并直面了书信体裁中固有的悖论。尽管他无法解开这个悖论，但他似乎将其纳入考量，试图探寻更高的真理。他要求读者暂时放下怀疑，摒弃旧有的阅读方式，仿佛这些信件真的出自阿尔卑斯山脚下纯真心灵的倾诉。这种阅读方式需要一种信仰的飞跃——对作者的信仰，他必定曾亲身经历过笔下人物的种种情感，并将它们锻造成超越文学本身的真理。

The problem may look like a false dilemma to the modern reader, but it obsessed Rousseau’s contemporaries. Many readers of La Nouvelle Héloïse believed and wanted to believe in the authenticity of the letters. Rousseau understood their need in advance. So he had his questioner, the sophisticated man of letters “N” in the second preface or préface dialoguée, return again and again to the query: “Is this correspondence real, or is it a fiction?”³⁸ “N” cannot let go of it; it “torments” him, he explains.³⁹ By letting him give vent to his doubts, Rousseau appeared to square with the reader and to face up to the paradox inherent in the epistolary genre. Although he could not resolve the paradox, he seemed to subsume it in an attempt to reach a higher truth. He asked the reader to suspend his disbelief and to cast aside the old way of reading in order to enter into the letters as if they really were the effusion of innocent hearts at the foot of the Alps. This kind of reading required a leap of faith—of faith in the author, who somehow must have suffered through the passions of his characters and forged them into a truth that transcends literature.

归根结底，卢梭小说的力量源于他的人格魅力。他开创了作者如同普罗米修斯般的新观念，这一观念在十九世纪影响深远。因此，在《新爱洛伊丝》中，他没有躲在幕后，而是走到了台前。他在序言中将一切都与自己——他的“我”——联系起来。在拒绝否认自己可能写过那些信件之后，他告诉“N”，他是这些信件的编辑。

Ultimately, then, the power of Rousseau’s novel derived from the force of his personality. He initiated a new conception of the author as Prometheus, one that would go far in the nineteenth century. So in La Nouvelle Héloïse instead of hiding behind the scene, he strode to the front of the stage. He related everything in the prefaces to himself, his “I”. And after refusing to deny that he might have written the letters, he told “N” that he is their editor:

因此，卢梭主义的影响很大程度上要归功于卢梭本人。他触及读者最私密的体验，并鼓励他们透过文字看到文本背后真实的卢梭。毫不奇怪，许多读者都试图亲自与他接触——人数之多，以至于他在圣皮埃尔岛的隐居处不得不设置一个暗门来躲避那些前来寻访的人。卢梭打破了作家与读者之间的隔阂。他创造了他在《爱弥儿》中推崇的艺术： “与不在场的人交谈并倾听他们的艺术，无需任何中介，将我们的情感、意志和欲望传达给远方之人的艺术。” ⁴²他发展了这种艺术，但他的读者——真正的读者，而不仅仅是文本中设想的读者——对此作何反应呢？这个问题又将我们带回到了让·朗松身上。

The impact of Rousseauism therefore owed a great deal to Rousseau. He spoke to the most intimate experiences of his readers and encouraged them to see through to the Jean-Jacques behind the texts. It hardly seems surprising that many of them tried to make contact with him in person—so many that he needed a trap door to escape those who sought him out in his retreat on the Ile Saint-Pierre. Rousseau broke down the barriers separating writer from reader. He created the art that he recommended in Emile: “the art of speaking to those who are absent and of hearing them, the art of communicating to those far away, without any mediation, our feelings, will, desires.”⁴² He developed that art, but how did his readers respond to it—real readers, not merely those envisioned in the text? That question brings us back to Jean Ranson.

从通信伊始，朗松就明确表示，他对“让-雅克的朋友”的喜爱程度不亚于卢梭的著作。奥斯特瓦尔德恰好能满足朗松的这种兴趣，因为这位瑞士出版商有时会去巴黎出差，并在收集到一些文学界的八卦消息后，将消息寄给身在拉罗谢尔的年轻朋友。可惜的是，奥斯特瓦尔德的信件已经遗失，但其中很可能包含一些与卢梭会面的记录；因为朗松一直询问他朋友的消息 ，如果迟迟没有收到，他就会抱怨：“什么！你见过 让-雅克的朋友，却不告诉我全部情况！我希望你只是把消息推迟到下一封信里。” ⁴³朗松同样渴望收到卢梭的作品。尽管他对印刷质量颇有微词，但他最关心的还是文本的真实性。 “让我犹豫是否要购买更多他的作品的原因之一，”他向奥斯特瓦尔德解释道，“是那位不幸的伟人否认了两三年前市面上销售的所有版本；他只承认第一版，而第一版是他自己参与制作的，并且已经绝版多年。” ⁴⁴ 1777年春天，奥斯特瓦尔德即将再次前往巴黎时，朗松写道：“你一定会见到我的朋友让-雅克。请你向他打听一下我们是否能找到他作品的精装版。我尤其恳请你在回来之前告诉我他的健康状况。” ⁴⁵在朗松的信中，人和作品总是密不可分的。

From the beginning of his correspondence, Ranson made it clear that “l‘Ami Jean-Jacques” fascinated him as much as Rousseau’s writing. Ostervald was well placed to satisfy that interest, because the Swiss publisher sometimes made business trips to Paris, and after gathering literary gossip he sent reports to his young friend in La Rochelle. Unfortunately, Ostervald’s side of the correspondence is missing, but it probably contained some accounts of meetings with Rousseau; for Ranson kept calling for news of his ami and complained when it failed to arrive: “What! You have seen l’Ami Jean-Jacques and you do not tell me all about it! I hope you have only postponed the report for another letter.”⁴³ Ranson was equally anxious to receive Rousseau’s works. Much as he fussed about the quality of the printing, he cared most of all about the authenticity of the texts. “One thing that makes me hesitate to purchase more of them,” he explained to Ostervald, “is the disavowal that that great unhappy man made of all the editions that were being sold two or three years ago; he would acknowledge only the first edition, which he helped to produce himself and which has been out of print for years.”⁴⁴ In the spring of 1777, when Ostervald was about to leave for another trip to Paris, Ranson wrote, “No doubt you will see l’Ami Jean-Jacques. Please find out from him whether we will be able to have a good edition of his works. And I beg of you especially to send me some word about his health before you return.”⁴⁵ The man and the works, they always went together in Ranson’s letters.

兰森在提及卢梭的同时，也谈到了自己的生活。 1777年6月，他即将年满三十岁时，写道：“先生，您一定很高兴听到我即将结束单身生活。我已选定我的表妹拉博托小姐，她也接受了我的求婚。拉博托小姐是去年南特罗瑟先生娶的那位小姐的妹妹。她父系上也和我一样，是雅尔纳克家族的亲戚。这位亲爱的姑娘性格开朗，而且一切都合宜，所以我对这段姻缘充满信心。”（此处纸张有破损）随后，他直接谈到了他最关心的话题：“先生，我曾多次恳求您告诉我我的朋友让-雅克的消息，我非常关心他，但您却如此冷酷无情，对他只字不提。您难道没有机会在巴黎见到他，和他聊上几句吗？我恳求您，如果可以的话，请尽快告诉我。”不想让我怀恨在心。” ⁴⁶

Ranson also accompanied the references to Rousseau with remarks on his own life. In June, 1777, when he was about to turn thirty, he wrote, “I am sure, Monsieur, that you will be happy to hear that I am about to end my bachelorhood. I have chosen and have been accepted by a Miss Raboteau, my cousin, the sister of the young lady whom M. Rother of Nantes married last year. She is also, on her father’s side, a relative of Jarnac to the same degree that I am. The happy character of this dear person combined with all considerations of propriety makes me hope in this commitment for the most [here there is a hole in the paper]” Then he moved directly to his favorite subject: “Although I have begged you again and again, Monsieur, to send me news about l’Ami Jean-Jacques, in whom I take the deepest interest, you are so cruel as to say nothing about him. Haven’t you had a chance to see him and to benefit from a few words with him in Paris? Tell me about it at the first possible moment, I insist, if you don’t want me to bear a grudge.”⁴⁶

兰森将他的婚姻和友谊联系起来并非偶然。他在下一封信中解释道：

Ranson’s association of his marriage and his ami did not take place by accident. In his next letter he explained:

几个月后，朗森在一封信中仍然隐晦地提到了卢梭。这一次，是他发来了祝贺：“我衷心祝贺您，还有贝特朗先生和夫人（奥斯特瓦尔德的女婿和女儿），祝贺你们的孙女降生，毫无疑问，孩子的母亲会像对待其他孩子一样亲自哺育她。” ⁴⁸ 年底，朗森得知自己也即将为人父。他通过阅读来为新的责任做准备：“如果可能的话，请帮我弄到一篇由日内瓦的巴莱克塞尔德先生撰写的关于儿童体育教育的优秀论文。我即将成为父亲，正在思考如何才能最好地履行我的职责。” ⁴⁹我们已经从一个传统的世界——孩子们按照家族传统抚养长大——进入了斯波克博士的世界，在那里，孩子们在印刷文字的指导下成长。兰森最主要的指导对象是卢梭，这位倡导母乳喂养和母爱的先知。1778年5月，他欣喜地写道：“我的妻子让我当了父亲，她是个女儿，长得很好，她的母亲也给她喂奶喂得非常成功。” ⁵⁰

The reference to Rousseau remained implicit in a letter that Ranson wrote a few months later. This time he was the one sending congratulations: “I congratulate you warmly, you and Monsieur and Madame Bertrand [Ostervald’s son-in-law and daughter], on the happy birth of your granddaughter, which no doubt the mother will nurse herself as she has done for her other children.”⁴⁸ At the end of the year, Ranson learned that he, too, was to become a father. He prepared himself for his new responsibilities by reading: “Please procure for me, if possible, an excellent dissertation on the physical education of children published by M. Ballexserd of Geneva. I am about to become a father, and am thinking of how I can best fulfill my duties.”⁴⁹ We have moved from a traditional world, where children are raised according to family lore, to the world of Doctor Spock, where they grow up under instructions from the printed word. Ranson sought guidance above all from Rousseau, the prophet of breast-feeding and maternal love. In May, 1778, he wrote joyfully, “My wife has made me the father of a girl, who is doing beautifully and who is being nursed by her mother with the greatest success.”⁵⁰

但不久之后，他得知他的精神导师去世了。

But soon afterward he learned that his spiritual guide had died.

朗松在一连串的信件中谈论卢梭。他想了解这位 挚友生平的一切，包括他的死因。他如饥似渴地阅读所有能找到的轶事，比较《欧洲信使报》、《文学年鉴》、《法国水星报》、 《林盖年鉴》以及其他许多期刊上的版本。他把一幅埃尔默农维尔墓的版画挂在书房的墙上。他买下了悼词、小册子，甚至还有一些据说是卢梭所作、在他死后开始流传的未发表手稿残片。朗松还收集各种传闻，尤其是那些经由他的书商帕维的店里流传的传闻。有人说让-雅克死于中毒。但《欧洲信使报》 声称的，难道不是更有可能是胃病吗？或者，是因为《忏悔录》手稿失踪带来的痛苦而亡？据说，掌玺大臣弄到了一份副本，并召见让-雅克，质问他为何这份副本会流传，因为他曾承诺绝不公开。一定是泰蕾丝·勒瓦瑟背着他把副本卖掉了。在让-雅克放弃抄写乐谱之后，他们急需用钱。但究竟是什么原因，没有人伸出援手，将他们从苦难中解救出来？让-雅克不是在1777年2月的一封公开信中表示，愿意将手稿留给任何愿意拯救它们的赞助人吗？泰蕾丝从马克·米歇尔·雷那里领取的养老金——而朗松对卢梭的家庭生活了如指掌——根本不够他们维持生计。或许，在丈夫去世后，泰蕾丝会去找雷，让他出版这些手稿。据帕维说，当时一些巴黎书商已经开始以15路易的价格出售《忏悔录》的手稿副本了。

Ranson went on to talk about Rousseau in a long string of letters. He wanted to know everything about the life and death of his ami. He devoured every anecdote he could get his hands on, comparing versions in the Courier de l‘Europe, L’Année littéraire, the Mercure de France, the Annales of Linguet, and many other periodicals. He hung an engraving of the tomb at Ermenonville on the wall of his study. He bought up eulogies, pamphlets, and even scraps of unpublished manuscripts that were attributed to Rousseau and began to circulate after his death. Ranson also collected rumors, especially those that passed through the shop of his bookseller, Pavie. Some said that Jean-Jacques had died from poisoning. But was it not more probably from stomach trouble, as the Courier de l’Europe had claimed? Or did it come as a result of the agony produced by the disappearance of the manuscript of the Confessions? The Keeper of the Seals was said to have procured a copy and to have summoned Jean-Jacques to explain how it could be circulating, since he had promised never to release it. Thérèse Levasseur must have sold it behind his back. They needed money desperately at the end, when Jean-Jacques had given up copying music. But why in the world had no one come forth to save them from their misery? Had not Jean-Jacques offered in an open letter of February, 1777, to leave his manuscripts to any patron who would rescue them? The pension that Thérèse received from Marc Michel Rey—and Ranson knew all about the details of Rousseau’s domestic life—did not provide enough for them to live on. Perhaps Thérèse would turn to Rey for the publication of the manuscripts now that her husband was dead. According to Pavie, some Parisian booksellers were already offering manuscript copies of the Confessions for fifteen louis.

《忏悔录》该是多么珍贵的宝藏啊！朗松渴望阅读它们，以及卢梭留下的所有著作。他想知道这位导师灵魂的每一个秘密，他过往的每一个细节，他笔下的每一部作品，甚至包括他音乐作品的注释——朗松特意向STN索要了这些注释。拉罗谢尔和纳沙泰尔之间的信件中充满了关于出版卢梭作品计划的提及，因为STN当时正与日内瓦印刷公司以及其他一些出版商竞争，他们都想获得吉拉尔丹侯爵和亚历山大·杜·佩鲁留下的手稿。这场争夺卢梭作品全集出版的狂潮，引发了旧制度出版史上最后一次大规模的混战。但对朗松来说，日内瓦人还是他在纳沙泰尔的朋友们最终获奖并不那么重要，只要能尽快出版完整准确的版本就行。他最渴望的是拥有完整的卢梭著作，将其融入自己的内心世界，并在日常生活中加以体现。

What a treasure those Confessions must be! Ranson burned with the desire to read them and everything else that Rousseau had left behind. He wanted to know every secret of his mentor’s soul, every detail of his past, every product of his pen, down to the annotations of his music, which Ranson especially requested from the STN. The letters between La Rochelle and Neuchâtel are full of references to plans for the publication of Rousseau’s works because the STN was competing with the Société typographique de Genève and a pack of other publishers who wanted to get their hands on the manuscripts left with the marquis de Girardin and Alexandre Du Peyrou. The scramble to put out a full edition of Rousseau’s works produced the last great free-for-all in the publishing history of the Old Regime. But to Ranson it did not matter terribly whether the Genevans or his friends in Neuchâtel should win the prize, provided that a complete and accurate edition should appear as soon as possible. He wanted above all to possess the complete Rousseau, to absorb it into his inner world, and to express it in his daily life.

因此，在他的信件中，对卢梭的提及不断出现，仿佛是对有关他家庭情况的一种补充说明。1778年9月，他将对卢梭之死及其遗作的长篇讨论与对新生儿的一些感想联系起来：

Thus the references to Rousseau continued to appear in his letters as a kind of gloss on the reports about his family. In September, 1778, he linked a long discussion of Rousseau’s death and posthumous works to some reflections on the new baby:

1780年2月，他们迎来了第一个儿子；1782年12月，又迎来了第二个儿子。朗松夫妇以他外祖父的名字给第一个孩子取名为让·伊萨克，第二个孩子取名为埃米尔。这一举动标志着他们与家族传统的重大决裂，因为朗松和拉博托家族几乎一直都只使用有限的几个家族姓氏——除了少数几个让、皮埃尔和保罗之外，他们大多使用新教徒偏爱的旧约圣经中的名字，例如亚伯拉罕、以撒、埃利、本杰明、撒母耳和约阿希姆。^小埃米尔的出生，正是他父母对卢梭教育理论以及人性观的坚定信念的活生生的见证。

A son was to come in February, 1780, another one in December, 1782. The Ransons named the first Jean Isaac after his maternal grandfather. They named the second Emile. That gesture represented a significant break with family tradition, for the Ransons and Raboteaus had almost always kept to a limited stock of family names—a few Jeans, Pierres, and Pauls among a profusion of the Old Testament variety favored by Protestants: Abraham, Isaac, Elie, Benjamin, Samuel, and Joachim.⁵³ Little Emile was to be a living testimony to his parents’ faith in Rousseau’s doctrine of education, and human nature in general.

孩子们出生后，朗松寄出了他们的出生通知，并附上了关于哺乳的感言和对卢梭的探讨。他意识到自己对让-雅克的双重迷恋：“请原谅我如此频繁、如此详尽地谈论让-雅克，但我喜欢告诉自己，他激发了我内心的热情，而这热情完全源于他对美德的热忱，相信您会原谅我，也相信您会不时地给我写信，谈起这位美德之友。” ⁵⁴ 后来，在谈到女儿时，他又写道：“看着这个小家伙长大，我感到多么快乐！如果她能继续活下去，如果我能通过良好的教育充分发挥她善良的本性，我将多么幸福啊！先生，您是一位父亲，所以请您原谅我如此关注这些细节，这些细节对于一个非父亲的人来说毫无意义。” ⁵⁵

As the children arrived, Ranson sent off announcements of their births accompanied with remarks on their nursing and discussions of Rousseau. He was aware of this double obsession: “I ask your pardon for going on so often and at such length about Jean-Jacques, but I like to tell myself that the enthusiasm he inspires in me, and which is produced entirely by his own enthusiasm for virtue, will excuse me in your eyes and that it will compel you to write to me from time to time about this friend of virtue.”⁵⁴ And later, in connection with his daughter: “How much pleasure I take in watching this young creature grow! And how much happiness I will have if she continues to live and if, by a good education, I can make the most of the goodness of her nature. You are a father, Monsieur, and so you will excuse my dwelling on such details, which would have no interest for a man who isn’t one.”⁵⁵

兰森的育儿理念解释了他在STN（荷兰国家教育委员会）的指令中为何如此重视教育学和儿童文学。这些书籍代表了一种全新的儿童观，以及父母对子女教育的全新渴望。 ⁵⁶一个世纪前，夏尔·佩罗创作了《鹅妈妈童谣》的故事，旨在娱乐沙龙里的上流人士。兰森最喜欢的作家，尤其是德·热内利斯夫人和勒普兰斯·德·博蒙夫人，她们的作品是为儿童而作，其目的不仅在于娱乐，更在于培养他们的美德。这些新儿童读物的道德教化倾向在其书名中尤为突出：《道德玩具》（或称《婴儿故事集》） 和《儿童读物》（或称《精选短篇故事集》，旨在寓教于乐，培养美德）。这种倾向也主导了面向父母的新式启蒙读物，例如《道德教育：如何引导孩子的心灵，使其成长为快乐而有用的成年人？》这些书籍以卢梭式的“儿童天性善良”为出发点，并发展出一套深受卢梭思想影响的教育体系。除此之外，兰森至少还拥有两本《爱弥儿》。然而，真正令人瞩目的并非他阅读了哪些儿童教育著作，而是他竟然会阅读任何相关书籍。他通过阅读为人父母，并依靠书籍将自己的孩子培养成众多像爱弥儿和爱弥儿一样的优秀儿童。

Ranson’s approach to fatherhood explains the importance of the pedagogical and children’s literature in his orders with the STN. Those books represented a new attitude toward children and a new desire to oversee their education on the part of parents.⁵⁶ A century earlier, Charles Perrault had produced his tales of Mother Goose to amuse an audience of salon sophisticates. Ranson’s favorite authors, notably Mme de Genlis and Mme Leprince de Beaumont, wrote for the children themselves and did so not merely to amuse them but to develop their virtue. The moralistic emphasis of the new children’s books stands out in their titles: Moral playthings, or tales for infants and Reading for children, or a selection of short tales equally suited to amuse them and to make them love virtue. It also dominated the new primers for parents, like Moral education, or a reply to the question: how should one govern the mind and heart of a child in order to make him develop into a happy and useful adult? These books began from the Rousseauistic premise that children were naturally good and went on to develop a pedagogy saturated with Rousseauism. In addition to them, Ranson owned at least two copies of Emile. The remarkable thing, however, is not that he read this or that treatise on children but that he read any treatises at all. He entered into parenthood through reading and relied on books in order to make his offspring into so many Emiles and Emilies.

这种行为体现了一种对待文字的新态度。朗松读书并非为了享受文学，而是为了应对生活，尤其是家庭生活，这正是卢梭的初衷。从他的信件中可以看出，朗松和他的妻子完美地诠释了卢梭在《新爱洛伊丝》中描绘的读者形象： “我喜欢想象一对夫妻一起阅读这本集子，从中获得新的动力继续日常工作，或许还能找到新的方法让工作更有意义，”卢梭在第二篇序言中写道。“他们怎能想象一个幸福的家庭，而不渴望效仿这样一个美好的典范呢？” ⁵⁷朗松正是以卢梭希望的方式阅读他的作品，以此来塑造他的家庭。 “我妻子向您致以问候，”他在1780年9月写信给奥斯特瓦尔德说。“感谢上帝，她身体依然健康，她亲爱的宝宝也一样，吃着妈妈的奶长得很好。他三十个月大的姐姐，现在已经长大了，性格也十分讨喜。善良的让-雅克！我这番诚挚的问候都献给您。” ⁵⁸

This behavior expressed a new attitude toward the printed word. Ranson did not read in order to enjoy literature but to cope with life and especially family life, exactly as Rousseau intended. Seen through his letters, Ranson and his wife appear as the perfect image of the readers to whom Jean-Jacques addressed La Nouvelle Héloïse: “I like to imagine two spouses reading this collection together, finding in it fresh encouragement to continue with their daily work and perhaps new ways to make it useful,” Rousseau wrote in the second preface. “How could they contemplate the picture of a happy household without wanting to imitate such a sweet model?”⁵⁷ Ranson modeled his household in just that way, by reading Rousseau as Rousseau wanted to be read. “My wife sends you her respects,” he wrote to Ostervald in September, 1780. “She continues, thank God, to enjoy good health, as does her dear baby, who is doing very well on his mommy’s milk. His older sister, a big girl of thirty months, now shows its influence by the best of temperaments. Virtuous Jean-Jacques! It is to thee that I owe this tender obligation.”⁵⁸

档案中的其余信件也具有相同的语气——真挚、亲切、感伤而又充满道德教化——这是卢梭为世界各地的读者所定下的基调，无论他们的境遇多么不同。或许没有什么比这更平凡的了，但兰森信件的意义恰恰在于它们的平凡。它们展现了卢梭主义如何渗透到一个普通资产阶级的日常生活中，以及它如何帮助他理解生命中最重要的事情：爱情、婚姻、为人父母——这些平凡生活中的大事，以及构成法国各地生活的种种要素^。59

The rest of the letters in the dossier have the same tone—earnest, intimate, sentimental, and moralistic—the tone set by Rousseau for readers everywhere, however much they differed in their circumstances. Nothing could be more ordinary, perhaps, but the significance of Ranson’s letters consists in their ordinariness. They show how Rousseauism penetrated into the everyday world of an unexceptional bourgeois and how it helped him make sense of the things that mattered most in his existence: love, marriage, parenthood—the big events of a little life and the stuff that life was made of everywhere in France.⁵⁹

朗松的阅读方式在今天看来简直不可思议。《新爱洛伊丝》也难以卒读——即便并非人人都能读懂，至少对于许多现代“普通”读者而言，他们无法忍受六卷本的情感描写，其中既没有暴力场面，也没有露骨的性描写，更没有情节可言。这种情感在十八世纪令卢梭的读者们——成千上万的读者，而不仅仅是让·朗松——感到难以承受。通过研究他们的反应，我们可以更全面地理解卢梭的观点，并更清晰地认识到旧制度时期读者与当今读者之间的巨大鸿沟。

Ranson’s way of reading is unthinkable today. And La Nouvelle Héloïse is unreadable—if not for everyone, at least for a great many “ordinary” readers of the modern variety, who cannot wade through six volumes of sentiment unrelieved by any episodes of violence, explicit sex, or anything much in the way of plot. The sentiment overwhelmed Rousseau’s readers in the eighteenth century—thousands of them, not merely Jean Ranson. By studying their responses, we can put his case in perspective and get a broader view of the gap that separates the readers of the Old Regime from the readers of today.

尽管我们对旧制度时期的图书销售统计数据寥寥无几，但《新爱洛伊丝》无疑是那个世纪最畅销的小说。据L.-S. Mercier记载，该书供不应求，以至于书商不得不按天甚至按小时出租，一册书60分钟收费12苏。在1800年之前，该书至少出版了70个版本——这或许比出版史上任何其他小说的版本都多。诚然，像伏尔泰和格林这样最讲究文采的文人墨客，认为该书的文风过于夸张，题材也令人反感。但来自社会各阶层的普通读者却被它深深吸引。他们潸然泪下，他们感到窒息，他们激动不已，他们深入反思自己的人生，决心改过自新，然后他们又泪流满面地倾诉衷肠——并将这些感悟写成信寄给卢梭。卢梭将这些信件收集成册，至今仍保存完好，供后人鉴赏。⁶⁰

Although we have very few statistics on book sales under the Old Regime, it is clear that La Nouvelle Héloïse was perhaps the biggest best-seller of the century. The demand for copies outran the supply so badly that booksellers rented it out by the day and even by the hour, charging twelve sous for sixty minutes with one volume, according to L.-S. Mercier. At least seventy editions were published before 1800—probably more than for any other novel in the previous history of publishing. True, the most sophisticated men of letters, sticklers for correctness like Voltaire and Grimm, found the style overblown and the subject distasteful. But ordinary readers from all ranks of society were swept off their feet. They wept, they suffocated, they raved, they looked deep into their lives and resolved to live better, then they poured their hearts out in more tears—and in letters to Rousseau, who collected their testimonials in a huge bundle, which has survived for the inspection of posterity.⁶⁰

翻阅卢梭的《新爱洛伊丝》来信，处处都能听到啜泣声：年轻的出版商C.-J. Panckoucke的“眼泪”、“叹息”和“痛苦”；日内瓦的J.-L. Buisson的“甜蜜的眼泪”和“狂喜”；A.-J. Loyseau de Mauléon的“眼泪”和“甜蜜的倾诉”；巴黎的Charlotte Bourette的“如此甜蜜的眼泪”，仅仅是想到这些就让她哭得更厉害；J.-J.-P. Fromaget的“甜蜜的眼泪”如此之多，“每一页都让我心醉神迷”。卡阿涅神父至少十次向朋友们朗读同样的段落，每次都泪流满面：“你会感到窒息，你会放下这本书，你会痛哭流涕，你会写信告诉你，你激动得喘不过气来，泪流不止。”这部小说让让-弗朗索瓦·巴斯蒂德卧床不起，几乎让他发疯——至少他是这么认为的。而它对丹尼尔·罗甘的影响则截然相反，他哭得如此剧烈，以至于治好了自己的重感冒。拉萨拉斯男爵宣称，阅读这本书的唯一方法是在紧闭的房门后，这样才能安心地哭泣，而不会被仆人打扰。让-弗朗索瓦·卡佩罗尼耶·德·戈费库尔每次只能读几页，因为他的身体太虚弱，无法承受书中的情感冲击。但他的朋友，雅克·佩尔内蒂神父，却为自己能一口气读完六卷书而沾沾自喜，尽管他心跳加速。波利尼亚克侯爵夫人读到第六卷朱莉临终的场景时，崩溃了：“我不敢告诉你那一幕对我的影响。不，我哭都哭不出来了。一阵剧痛袭来，我的心都碎了。朱莉的离世不再是一个陌生人。我感觉自己就是她的妹妹，她的朋友，她的克莱尔。我的情绪崩溃得如此剧烈，如果我没有放下书，我恐怕也会像那些陪伴这位贤淑女子走完人生最后一程的人一样病倒。” 而在社会地位较低的夏洛特·德·拉·泰尔，朱莉的死让她痛哭流涕，整整八天都无法平静下来。路易·弗朗索瓦是一名退役军官，他预感到女主人公的命运即将终结，于是无法继续读下去，尽管他之前读前几卷时曾一口气哭完：

In going through Rousseau’s Nouvelle Héloïse mail, one is struck everywhere by the sound of sobbing: “tears,” “sighs,” and “torment” from the young publisher C.-J. Panckoucke; “delicious tears” and “ecstasy” from the Genevan J.-L. Buisson; “tears” and “delicious outpourings of the heart” from A.-J. Loyseau de Mauléon; “such delicious tears” from Charlotte Bourette of Paris that the mere thought of them set her to weeping more; so many “sweet tears” for J.-J.-P. Fromaget that “at every page my soul melted.” The abbé Cahagne read the same passages aloud to friends at least ten times, each time with bursts of tears all around: “One must suffocate, one must abandon the book, one must weep, one must write to you that one is choking with emotion and weeping.” The novel drove J.-F. Bastide to his bed and nearly drove him mad, or so he believed, while it produced the opposite effect on Daniel Roguin, who sobbed so violently that he cured himself of a severe cold. The baron de La Sarraz declared that the only way to read the book was behind locked doors, so that one could weep at one’s ease, without being interrupted by the servants. J.-V. Capperonnier de Gauffecourt read only a few pages at a time because his health was too weak to withstand the emotion. But his friend, the abbé Jacques Pernetti, congratulated himself on being robust enough to get through all six volumes without stopping, despite the pounding of his heart. The marquise de Polignac made it to Julie’s deathbed scene in volume six but then broke down: “I dare not tell you the effect it made on me. No, I was past weeping. A sharp pain convulsed me. My heart was crushed. Julie dying was no longer an unknown person. I believed I was her sister, her friend, her Claire. My seizure became so strong that if I had not put the book away I would have been as ill as all those who attended that virtuous woman in her last moments.” Lower down on the social scale, Charlotte de La Taille cried her heart out at the death of Julie and did not regain her composure for eight days. Sensing that the end was near for the heroine, Louis François, a retired army officer, found it impossible to continue, though he had wept his way without a halt through the earlier volumes:

《新爱洛伊丝》并非文学史上第一次引发情感风暴。理查森的作品早已在英国掀起哭泣的浪潮，莱辛的作品也在德国引发了同样的悲剧。卢梭与他们不同之处在于，他激发了读者一种强烈的渴望，想要与书页背后的生活——他笔下人物的生活以及他自己的生活——建立联系。因此，波利尼亚克夫人向一位知己坦白自己曾为卢梭笔下的情人们痛哭流涕后，又向一位朋友解释说，她感到一种无法抗拒的冲动，想要见到卢梭本人：

La Nouvelle Héloïse did not produce the first epidemic of emotion in the history of literature. Richardson had already set off waves of sobbing in England, and Lessing had done the same in Germany. Rousseau differed from them in that he inspired his readers with an overwhelming desire to make contact with the lives behind the printed page—the lives of his characters and his own. Thus after confessing to a confidante that she had wept her heart out over Rousseau’s lovers, Mme de Polignac explained to a friend that she had felt an irresistible need to see Rousseau himself:

因此，卢梭的书信自然而然地成为了他书信体小说的延伸。读者们给他写信，表达了他们确信他的信息已经传达给他们的保证，超越了纸面，从他的灵魂深处流淌到他们的心中。“我觉得，和你交流思想，总会被你的精神所感染，”路易·弗朗索瓦写道，“……我几乎没能像朱莉那样过着如此高尚的生活，但圣普雷的灵魂却完全融入了我的灵魂。而朱莉已经入土为安！在那之后，我眼中只有​​大自然可怕的空虚。那么，我说世上无人能与你比肩，难道错了吗？除了伟大的卢梭，还有谁能如此震撼读者？还有谁能如此有力地挥动笔，使自己的灵魂融入读者的灵魂？”同样的冲动也席卷了相对冷静的读者，比如新教牧师保罗-克洛德·穆尔图：

Thus Rousseau’s correspondence became the logical extension of his epistolary novel. In sending letters to him, his readers conveyed reassurances that his message had got across, passing beyond the printed page from his soul into theirs. “It seems to me that one cannot exchange thoughts with you without being filled with your spirit,” wrote Louis François. “... I have hardly lived as virtuously as Julie, but the soul of Saint-Preux had passed completely into mine. And Julie in the grave! After that I could see nothing but a frightful emptiness in nature. Am I wrong then to say that there is no equal to you on earth? Who but the great Rousseau can overwhelm his readers in that way? Who else can wield a pen so forcefully as to make his soul pass into theirs?” The same impulse overcame relatively sober readers, like the Protestant minister Paul-Claude Moultou:

当然，我们必须考虑到那个时代人们过于敏感的风格，但许多信件都给人一种真实可信的感觉。一位名叫杜韦尔热的女士，因为迫切想知道卢梭笔下的人物是否真实存在，而从外省一个偏僻的地方写信给她：

Of course, one must make allowances for the hypersensitive style of the time, but many of the letters have a ring of authenticity. A certain Mme Du Verger wrote from an obscure outpost in the provinces because of an invincible desire to know whether Rousseau’s characters were real:

让-雅克·卢梭的许多女性仰慕者的来信中都流露出诱惑的意味。还有谁比《朱丽叶》的作者，或者至少是爱慕者，更懂得爱情呢？女人们纷纷向他投怀送抱，她们写信给他，甚至前往他在蒙莫朗西的隐居处朝圣。玛丽-安妮·阿利桑·德·拉图尔把自己想象成朱丽叶，而她的朋友玛丽-玛德琳·贝尔纳多尼则扮演克莱尔，她们联手向卢梭倾泻了大量的信件，这些信件笔法精妙，以至于很快，卢梭就成了她们的“圣普雷”，与她们保持了长达数年的通信。65^卢梭后来在《忏悔录》中颇为得意地写道，他的小说征服了上流社会的女士们，尽管它代表着对世俗世界的摒弃： “文人墨客对此意见不一，但在上流社会，人人都赞同。尤其是女性，她们对这本书和它的作者如此着迷，以至于即使是地位最高的女性，如果我试图征服她们，也几乎都能得到。”他讲述了一个贵妇的故事：晚饭后，她一边梳妆打扮准备参加舞会，一边开始阅读这本书。午夜时分，她仍在阅读，便吩咐人给马匹套上挽具。两点钟时，仆人提醒她马车已经等候，但她依然沉浸在书中。到了四点，她仍然如痴如醉地阅读着。她的手表停了，于是她打电话询问时间——然后决定把马匹送回马厩，脱下衣服，与圣普雷、朱莉和让-雅克一起，在如痴如醉的氛围中度过余下的夜晚^。66

The suggestion of seduction shows through many of the letters from Jean-Jacques’s female admirers. Who better understood love than the lover, or at least the creator, of Julie? Women threw themselves at him, in letters and in pilgrimages to his retreat at Montmorency. Marie-Anne Alissan de La Tour cast herself as Julie, while her friend Marie-Madeleine Bernardoni took the role of Claire, and together they deluged Rousseau with letters so artfully turned that soon he was playing Saint-Preux to them in a correspondence that lasted several years.⁶⁵ Rousseau later noted with some satisfaction in his Confessions that his novel had overwhelmed society ladies, even though it represented a rejection of le monde: “Opinions were divided among men of letters, but in society everyone agreed. Women especially became so intoxicated with the book and with its author that there were few of them, even of the highest rank, whom I could not have had, if I had attempted their conquest.” He told the story of one grande dame who began to read the book after supper, while being dressed for a ball. At midnight, still reading, she ordered her horses to be harnessed. At two o’clock her servants reminded her that the carriage was waiting, but she read on. By four, she was still reading feverishly. Her watch had stopped, so she rang to enquire about the time—and then decided to send the horses back to the stable, undress, and spend the rest of the night in rapturous communion with Saint-Preux, Julie, and Jean-Jacques.⁶⁶

当然，《新爱洛伊丝》是一部爱情故事，但卢梭的读者在试图解释他激起的情感时，坦言自己表达的是对美德的热爱。“我想紧紧地拥抱你，”一位名叫让-约瑟夫-皮埃尔·弗罗马热的低级税务官写道，“……先生，我必须表达我的感激之情，感谢您带给我的所有快乐，感谢圣普雷、朱莉、德唐日夫人让我流下的所有甜蜜的泪水。我真想成为您笔下的每一个人物。每一页都让我心潮澎湃：哦！美德是多么美好啊！” ⁶⁷许多读者试图通过书信与卢梭建立联系，他们渴望向他倾诉，就像他们认为卢梭也在向他们倾诉一样——这种倾诉是通过《新爱洛伊丝》中的信件间接进行的，早于《忏悔录》中坦诚的灵魂剖析 。他们想告诉他，他们如何与他笔下的人物产生共鸣，他们也曾爱过、犯过罪、受过苦，并在一个邪恶而愚昧的世界里决心重拾美德。他们知道他的小说是真实的，因为他们在生活中已经体会到了小说所传达的信息。

Of course, La Nouvelle Héloïse is a love story, but it was love of virtue that Rousseau’s readers confessed when they tried to explain the emotion that he had aroused in them. “I would like to take hold of you and squeeze you in my arms,” wrote Jean-Joseph-Pierre Fromaget, a minor tax official. “... I must express my gratitude, Monsieur, for all the pleasure you have given me, for all the sweet tears that Saint-Preux, Julie, Mme D’Etange have made me shed. I gladly would have become each of the characters you created. At each page my soul melted: Oh! is not virtue beautiful!”⁶⁷ In trying to make contact with Rousseau by letter, many of his readers were driven by a need to confess to him just as they took him to be confessing to them—indirectly through the letters of La Nouvelle Héloïse before the open baring of the soul that was to come in the Confessions. They wanted to tell him how they identified with his characters, how they, too, had loved, sinned, suffered, and resolved to be virtuous again in the midst of a wicked and uncomprehending world. They knew his novel was true because they had read its message in their lives.

一位海外匿名读者解释说，他不得不把他的朱莉留在法国。在阅读《新爱洛伊丝》时，他一边啜泣一边仿佛看到了自己的人生在他眼前展开，心中涌起一股强烈的冲动，“想要拥抱你，千百次地感谢你让我流下如此甘甜的泪水。”一位年轻女子写道，她能与卢梭笔下的人物产生共鸣，这与她读过的其他小说中的人物截然不同，因为他们并非处于特定的社会阶层，而是代表了一种普遍的思维和情感方式，每个人都可以将其运用到自己的生活中，从而变得更加高尚。一位严谨的日内瓦人，一向不喜阅读小说，却发现自己违背了自己的原则，被深深吸引：“我承认，在阅读这些信件时，我感觉信中所表达的所有情感都化身为我，我先后变成了朱莉、沃尔玛、邦斯顿，有时是克莱尔，但除了第一部分之外，很少是圣普雷。”潘库克一放下书就拿起笔，一心想把一切都说出来——尽管他没什么可说的（他在出版业的投机才刚刚开始，他还没有想过要垄断伏尔泰作品的市场）：

An anonymous reader overseas explained that he had had to leave his Julie behind in France. While sobbing through La Nouvelle Héloïse, he had seen his life unfurl before him and had felt a powerful urge “to throw my arms around you and to thank you a thousand times for the delicious tears that you wrung out of me.” A young woman wrote that she could identify with Rousseau’s characters, unlike those in all the other novels she had read, because they did not occupy a specific social station but rather represented a general way of thinking and feeling, one that everyone could apply to their own lives and thus become more virtuous. An austere Genevan, who disapproved of all novels, found himself carried away despite his principles: “I confess that I felt all the feelings expressed in those letters become personified in me while reading them and that I became successively Julie, Wolmar, Bomston, often Claire but rarely Saint-Preux, except in the first part.” As soon as he put down the book Panckoucke picked up the pen, driven by a need to tell all—even though he did not have much to tell (his speculations in publishing had only begun and he had not yet dreamt of cornering the market for the works of Voltaire):

读者们一次又一次地回到同一个主题。让-雅克让他们更深刻地领悟了人生的意义。他们或许像朱莉和圣普雷一样犯过错，但他们心中始终热爱美德，如今他们决心为之奉献——不是抽象的美德，而是质朴的美德，并将之融入家庭生活的方方面面。鲁塞洛先生、B.-L. 德·勒方·德·拉·帕特里埃、A.-L. 拉利夫·德·朱利读着，潸然泪下，决心掌控自己的人生。F.-C. 康斯坦·德·雷贝克通过将丈夫想象成圣普雷，将自己想象成朱莉，学会了如何去爱她的丈夫。而J.-L.勒科因特以全新的视角看待他的整个家庭：“我真心实意地爱着我的年轻妻子，我从你身上学到，她也一样，我们之前认为仅仅是基于共同生活习惯的依恋，实际上是一种极其温柔的爱。我今年二十八岁，已经是四个孩子的父亲，我会遵循你的教诲，把他们培养成真正的男子汉——不是你周围随处可见的那种男人，而是我们只有在你身上才能看到的那种男人。” ⁶⁹

Again and again the readers returned to the same theme. Jean-Jacques had made them see deeper into the meaning of their lives. They may have erred like Julie and Saint-Preux, but they had always loved virtue in their hearts and now they would dedicate themselves to it—not virtue in the abstract, but the homespun variety, which they would work into the fabric of their family lives. M. Rousselot, B.-L. de Lenfant de la Patrière, A.-L. Lalive de Jully read, wept, and resolved to get a grip on their lives. F.-C. Constant de Rebecque learned to love her husband by picturing him as Saint-Preux and herself as Julie. And J.-L. Le Cointe saw his whole family in a new light: “Sincerely committed to a young wife, I have learned from you, and she has, too, that what had seemed to us to be a mere attachment based on the habit of living together is in fact a most tender love. At the age of twenty-eight, I am a father of four children, and I will follow your lessons in order to form them into men—not the kind of men you see everywhere around you, but the kind that we see in you alone.”⁶⁹

将这些热情洋溢的信件简单地视为粉丝来信是不妥的——尽管作家收到素不相识的仰慕者来信本身就是一件意义非凡的新鲜事，也是卢梭正在帮助建立的新兴作家崇拜的一部分。这些信件在今天看来或许天真而感伤，但它们却证明了卢梭两百年前修辞的有效性。他的“粉丝”们按照他所期望的方式阅读他的作品，并全身心地投入到序言中设定的角色之中。“说实话，先生，我想您在世上找不到比我更配得上您的读者了，”A.-J. 洛伊索·德·莫莱昂写道，“您书中的每一句描述、每一种情感、每一种思考、每一个原则，都与我这不幸的命运不谋而合。”读者们在描述他们如何放下批判本能、与书中人物产生共鸣、任由情感的浪潮席卷自身时，有意无意地复述或引用了卢梭在序言中给出的指示。一位仰慕者解释说，他被朱莉的爱情故事深深打动，确信这一定是真的；只有在世人眼中，这才会被当作“虚构的故事”。另一位读者几乎原封不动地复述了序言中的道德论证，并总结道：“自从读了您的小说，我感觉自己变得更好了，我希望它不是小说。”还有一位读者明确地表达了这种暗示：“您的书在我身上产生了您在序言中预见到的效果。” ⁷⁰

It would be wrong to dismiss such effusions as fan mail—al—though the very idea of a writer receiving mail from unknown admirers was a significant novelty, part of the new cult of the writer that Rousseau was helping to create. Naive and sentimental as the letters may seem today, they testify to the effectiveness of Rousseau’s rhetoric two hundred years ago. His “fans” read him in the way that he asked to be read and threw themselves into the role called for in the prefaces. “In truth, Monsieur, I do not think that you can find on earth a reader more worthy of you than I am,” wrote A.-J. Loyseau de Mauléon. “There is not a description, not a sentiment, not a reflection, not a principle in your book that does not correspond to my unhappy lot.” In describing the way they suspended their critical instinct, identified with the characters, and let waves of emotion wash over themselves, the readers paraphrased or quoted, consciously or not, the instructions that Rousseau had given them in the prefaces. One admirer explained that he had been so moved by Julie’s love story that he knew it must be true; only to the heartless sophisticates of le monde could it be “a fiction.” Another reproduced the moral argument of the prefaces almost exactly, concluding, “I feel myself to be a better person ever since I read your novel, which I hope is not a novel.” And a third made the allusion explicit: “Your book produced in me the effects that you had foreseen in your preface.”⁷⁰

1761年《新爱洛伊丝》引发的泪水洪流不应被视为又一波前浪漫主义的感伤主义浪潮。它回应了一种全新的修辞情境。读者与作​​者在纸页间进行交流，各自扮演着文本中设想的理想角色。让-雅克向那些能够正确解读他的人敞开了心扉，而他的读者则感到自己的灵魂超越了平凡生活的种种不完美。与“让-雅克之友”建立联系后，他们感到自己能够重新掌控自己的人生，作为配偶、父母和公民，正如几年后朗松开始阅读卢梭时所做的那样。

The flood of tears unloosed by La Nouvelle Héloïse in 1761 should not be considered as just another wave of preromantic sentimentality. It was a response to a new rhetorical situation. Reader and writer communed across the printed page, each of them assuming the ideal form envisioned in the text. Jean-Jacques opened up his soul to those who could read him right, and his readers felt their own souls elevated above the imperfections of their ordinary existence. Having made contact with “l’Ami Jean-Jacques,” they then felt capable of repossessing their lives, as spouses, parents, and citizens, exactly as Ranson was to do a few years later, when he began to read Rousseau.

因此，兰森并非特例。他于1774年至1785年间写给奥斯特瓦尔德的信件，与卢梭于1761年收到的信件中呈现的回应如出一辙，只不过这种回应在卢梭的信件中呈横向展开。这两个维度相辅相成，表明卢梭式阅读在法国大革命前夕是一个重要的现象。它究竟有多重要？我们无法精确衡量，但我们可以将其与新兴的阅读史领域的主要理论——事实上，也是唯一的概括性结论——进行比对：即18世纪末欧洲发生了一场“阅读革命” （Leserevolution） 。

Ranson was not, therefore, an aberration. The letters that he sent to Ostervald from 1774 to 1785 show the same kind of response that one can find spread out horizontally, so to speak, in the letters received by Rousseau in 1761. The two dimensions complement each other and suggest that Rousseauistic reading was an important phenomenon in prerevolutionary France. How important? One cannot measure it precisely, but one can hold it up against the main governing hypothesis—in fact, the only broad generalization-in the newly emerging field of the history of reading: namely, that a “reading revolution” (Leserevolution) took place in Europe toward the end of the eighteenth century.

罗尔夫·恩格尔辛和其他德国学者发展出的这一概念，将阅读的发展分为两个阶段。 ⁷¹从文艺复兴时期到大约1750年，欧洲人进行的是“精读”。他们能接触到的书籍非常有限——《圣经》、宗教著作、偶尔出现的小册子或年鉴——他们反复阅读，在内心默想，或在家庭和社交聚会（如“ Spinnstube” 和“veillée”）中与他人分享。到了18世纪下半叶，受过教育的人开始进行“广读”。他们阅读大量的印刷品，尤其是小说和期刊，这些是当时在城市中心遍地开花的读书俱乐部（Lesegesellschaften，cabinets littéraires）中最受欢迎的类型。而且，他们每本书只读一遍，纯粹是为了消遣，然后就迫不及待地阅读下一本。

As developed by Rolf Engelsing and other German scholars, this notion divides the development of reading into two phases.⁷¹ From the Renaissance until 1750 approximately, Europeans read “intensively.” They had access to very few books—the Bible, devotional works, an occasional chapbook or an almanac—and they read them over and over again, meditating on them inwardly or sharing them aloud with others in family and social gatherings (the Spinnstube and veillée). In the second half of the eighteenth century, educated people began to read “extensively.” They ran through a great deal of printed matter, especially novels and journals, the favorite genres in the reading clubs (Lesegesellschaften, cabinets littéraires) that proliferated everywhere in urban centers. And they read each item only once, for amusement, then raced on to the next.

区分精读和泛读或许可以用来对比五个世纪前和今天读者的行为，但这能帮助我们找到十八世纪晚期的转折点吗？如果兰森的情况具有任何典型性，答案是否定的。诚然，兰森阅读了大量小说和期刊，有时还会与朋友一起阅读，这与德国读书会的社交方式颇为相似。 例如，他在1774年写给奥斯特瓦尔德的一封信中提到：“诺丁格和我一起阅读各种期刊，他请你不要再把你的期刊寄给他了，因为我收到的那份就足够我们两个人阅读了。” ⁷²但这种阅读方式并不妨碍阅读的深度。七年后，朗森写道，他正在减少期刊订阅，以便更深入地阅读：“我必须说，我被期刊淹没了，它们占用了我本应用于扎实阅读的时间；因此，我非但没有增加订阅数量，反而尽一切可能减少订阅量。” ⁷³朗森对当代小说的兴趣并不意味着他忽视了经典作品，或者他只是匆匆读过一遍法国文学巨匠的作品。他写道，他喜欢梅西耶和《巴黎画卷》， “但我无法原谅他对拉辛的评价。拉辛是一位神圣的诗人，我每次重读他的作品都会发现新的魅力。” ⁷⁴ 很难找到比朗森更专注的读者，而且他的阅读量越大，阅读的深度就越深。如果说有什么例子的话，那就是他展现了一场“阅读革命”的逆向发展。

The distinction between intensive and extensive reading may serve as a way to contrast the behavior of readers five centuries ago with that of readers today, but does it help one to locate a turning point in the late eighteenth century? Not if Ranson’s case has any typicality. True, Ranson read a great many novels and journals, and he sometimes read them with friends, in a way that bears some resemblance to the sociability of the German Lesegesellschaften. Thus he remarked in a letter to Ostervald of 1774, “Nordingh, who reads various journals with me, asks you to stop sending yours to him because the copy I receive will do for both of us.”⁷² But reading of this kind did not exclude intensity, and seven years later Ranson wrote that he was cutting down on his subscriptions to journals in order to read still more intensively: “I must say that I am overwhelmed with periodicals, which take away time that I should devote to solid reading; so instead of increasing the number I receive, I am doing all I can to reduce it.”⁷³ Ranson’s interest in contemporary novels did not mean that he neglected the classics, or that he read the great figures of French literature rapidly and only once. He wrote that he liked Mercier and the Tableau de Paris, “but I cannot forgive him for what he says about Racine, a divine poet, whom I never reread without discovering new charms.”⁷⁴ One could hardly find a more intensive reader than Ranson, and his reading became more intense as he did more of it. If anything, it illustrates a “reading revolution” in reverse.

兰森的阅读方式并未与当时的主流趋势背道而驰，这一点可以从维亚尔的德国对应著作——约翰·亚当·伯格克的《阅读艺术》（耶拿，1799年）中得到印证。伯格克的这本阅读指南堪称 一场阅读革命的典范。与维亚尔纠结于发音问题不同，伯格克提出了一套完整的“阅读艺术”。他首先建议读者如何以恰当的方式阅读书籍。例如，切勿站着阅读，也不要饭后阅读。相反，应该用冷水洗脸，然后把书带到户外，在大自然的怀抱中阅读——而且要大声朗读，因为声音有助于理解思想。但最重要的是，要保持正确的精神状态。不要被动地接受文本，而应该全身心地投入其中，领悟其意义，并将其应用于自身的生活。 “我们必须将所读的一切与‘我’联系起来，从个人的角度反思一切，并且永远不要忘记，学习使我们更加自由和独立，并帮助我们找到表达内心和思想的出口。” ⁷⁵伯格克将这种阅读观念归功于让-雅克·卢梭。他用一个重要的章节专门论述卢梭，并在扉页引用了 《新爱洛伊丝》中对像朗松这样的读者意义非凡的几句话：“少读多思考，或者彼此深入讨论，这才是彻底消化它的方法。” ⁷⁶这一观点与维亚尔强调阅读是生活道德准备的观点非常契合。事实上，教科书中阐述的阅读、卢梭倡导的阅读以及朗松所体验的阅读本质上是相同的；但这并非恩格辛革命中那种“广泛”的阅读。

That Ranson’s way of reading did not run counter to the main trend of his time can be appreciated by the German counterpart of Viard: Die Kunst Bücher zu Lesen (Jena, 1799), a manual on reading by Johann Adam Bergk, which should be the embodiment of a Leserevolution, if there were one. Instead of dwelling on problems of pronunciation in the manner of Viard, Bergk propounded a full-blown “art of reading.” He began with advice on how to approach books physically. You should never read while standing or after having finished a meal. Instead, you should wash your face with cold water and take your book outdoors, where you can read it in the bosom of nature—and aloud, for the sound of the voice facilitates the penetration of ideas. But most important, you should have the right spiritual disposition. Instead of responding passively to the text, you should throw yourself into it, seize its meaning, and apply it to your own life. “We must relate everything we read to our ‘I,’ reflect on everything from our personal point of view, and never lose sight of the consideration that study makes us freer and more independent, and that it should help us find an outlet for the expression of our heart and mind.”⁷⁵ Bergk attributed this conception of reading to Jean-Jacques Rousseau. He devoted a crucial chapter to Rousseau and cited on his title page the very lines from La Nouvelle Héloïse that meant so much to readers like Ranson: “To read little and meditate a great deal upon our reading, or to talk it over extensively between ourselves, that is the way to thoroughly digest it.”⁷⁶ This notion is quite compatible with Viard’s emphasis on reading as a moral preparation for living. In fact, the reading that was expounded in the textbooks, called for by Rousseau, and experienced by Ranson was essentially the same; but it was not the “extensive” reading of Engelsing’s revolution.

简而言之，在我看来，这样的革命并未发生。但十八世纪末期，读者对文本的反应方式确实发生了变化。有多少读者？有多少文本？这些量化问题无法回答。我们只能断言，在旧制度末期，一个庞大但难以估量的读者群体中，阅读质量发生了改变。尽管许多作家为这种变化铺平了道路，但我认为主要归功于卢梭主义的兴起。卢梭教导读者要彻底“消化”书籍，使文学融入生活。卢梭主义的读者通过沉浸在书海中恋爱、结婚、养育子女。当然，他们并非第一批对书籍做出如此强烈反应的人。卢梭自身的阅读方式就体现了他加尔文教传统中浓厚的个人宗教情怀的影响。他的读者很可能将一种古老的宗教阅读方式应用于新的文本，尤其是小说——这种文本此前似乎与宗教阅读格格不入。或许，读者对尼采、加缪乃至当今流行心理学的反应中，仍能寻觅到这种精神的火花。然而，若试图在其他时代寻找与卢梭式阅读的相似之处，则会模糊其独特性，削弱其意义。朗松及其同时代人属于一种特殊的读者群体，这种读者兴起于十八世纪，并在《包法利夫人》时代开始消亡。法国大革命前的卢梭式读者们以一种我们难以想象的热情投入到文本之中，这种热情对我们来说如同北欧人对掠夺的渴望……或巴厘岛人对恶魔的恐惧一样陌生。

It seems to me, in short, that no such revolution took place. But something happened to the way that readers responded to texts in the late eighteenth century. How many readers? How many texts? The quantitative questions will not admit of answers. One can only assert that the quality of reading changed in a broad but immeasurable public toward the end of the Old Regime. Although many writers prepared the way for this change, I would attribute it primarily to the rise of Rousseauism. Rousseau taught his readers to “digest” books so thoroughly that literature became absorbed in life. The Rousseauistic readers fell in love, married, and raised children by steeping themselves in print. They were not, of course, the first to respond dramatically to books. Rousseau’s own reading showed the influence of the intense, personal religiosity of his Calvinist heritage. His public probably applied an old style of religious reading to new material, notably the novel, which had previously seemed incompatible with it. And there may be a spark of that spirit in the way readers have reacted to Nietzsche or Camus or even popular psychology today. But to search for parallels to Rousseauistic reading in other ages is to blur its specificity and to blunt its significance. Ranson and his contemporaries belonged to a peculiar species of reader, one that arose in the eighteenth century and that began to die out in the age of Madame Bovary. The Rousseauistic readers of prerevolutionary France threw themselves into texts with a passion that we can barely imagine, that is as alien to us as the lust for plunder among the Norsemen ... or the fear of demons among the Balinese.

如果要给这类阅读归类，我会把它放在十七世纪晚期以取悦（plaire）为目的的阅读和十九世纪晚期以消遣（distraire）为目的的阅读之间。但这种分类也过于简单。它忽略了那些为了升华天堂、理解自然法则、提升礼仪，甚至最终为了修理收音机而阅读的人。阅读的形式多种多样，无法用单一的发展轨迹来概括。但卢梭式的阅读应该被视为一种独特的历史现象，不应与当今的阅读混为一谈，因为旧制度时期的读者生活在一个如今几乎难以想象的精神世界中。

If I had to place this kind of reading in a general pattern, I would locate it between the reading intended to please (plaire) in the late seventeenth century and to amuse (distraire) in the late nineteenth century. But that schema is also too simplistic. It leaves no room for those who read in order to reach heaven, to understand the laws of nature, to improve their manners, or, eventually, to repair their radios. Reading has assumed too many forms to follow a single course of development. But its Rousseauistic variety should be recognised as a distinct historical phenomenon and should not be confused with reading in the present, for the readers of the Old Regime lived in a mental world that is almost unthinkable today.

思考那些几乎不可思议之事，并捕捉人们构建世界方式的差异，这让我们再次想起让·朗松。我必须承认，最终我确实认为他堪称典范，并非因为他符合任何统计模式，而是因为他正是卢梭著作中所描述的“他者”。他既是文本中设想的理想读者，也是购买书籍的真实读者。他将这两种角色融为一体的方式，展现了卢梭式修辞的有效性。通过将他的世界观融入朗松的日常生活，卢梭表明了他的思想如何能够触动每个人的生活。而朗松则按照卢梭的教导吸收文本，见证了读者与印刷文字之间一种全新的关系。作家和读者共同实现了交流方式的变革，这种变革远远超越了文学的范畴，并将在几代革命者和浪漫主义者心中留下深刻的印记。

The need to think the almost unthinkable and to capture the differences in the ways men have construed the world brings us back to Jean Ranson. I must admit in the end that I do find him exemplary, not because he conforms to any statistical pattern but because he was exactly the “other” addressed in Rousseau’s writing. He embodied both the ideal reader envisioned in the text and the real reader who bought the books. And the way he brought those roles together demonstrated the effectiveness of Rousseauistic rhetoric. By stamping his vision of the world on Ranson’s daily life, Rousseau showed how he could touch lives everywhere. And by absorbing the texts as Rousseau taught him, Ranson testified to a new relationship between the reader and the printed word. Writer and reader together realized a transformation in a mode of communication that went far beyond literature and that would leave its mark on several generations of revolutionaries and romantics.

书名及其出版地均保留了原拼写，出版地信息也标注在扉页上。其中有三本书我无法辨认。

The original spelling of the titles has been retained, along with the place of publication given on the title pages. I was not able to identify three of the books.

Histoire philosophique et politique des établissemens et du commerce des Européens dans les deux Indes（日内瓦，1780 年），4 卷。 in-4°，G.-T。雷纳尔. Voyage en Sicile et à Malte，M. Brydone 的英语翻译，由 M. Démeunier 编写（伦敦，1776 年），2 卷。 in-8°，帕特里克·布赖登 (Patrick Brydone) 着。 Voyage historique & littéraire dans la Suisse occidentale（纳沙泰尔，1781 年），2 卷。 in-8°，J.-R.罪人。 描述 des montagnes & des vallées qui font partie de la principauté de Neuchâtel & Valengin (纳沙泰尔, 1766)，作者 FS。奥斯特瓦尔德。 [ Abrégé élémentaire de l'histoire Universelle et Cours de géographie élémentaire：参见儿童书籍。]

Histoire philosophique et politique des établissemens et du commerce des Européens dans les deux Indes (Genève, 1780), 4 vols. in-4°, by G.-T. Raynal. Voyage en Sicile et à Malte, traduit de l‘anglois de M. Brydone, par M. Démeunier (Londres, 1776), 2 vols. in-8°, by Patrick Brydone. Voyage historique & littéraire dans la Suisse occidentale (Neuchâtel, 1781), 2 vols. in-8°, by J.-R. Sinner. Description des montagnes & des vallées qui font partie de la principauté de Neuchâtel & Valengin (Neuchâtel, 1766), by F-S. Ostervald. [Abrégé élémentaire de l’histoire universelle et Cours de géographie élémentaire: see under Children’s books.]

Théâtre de société（纳沙泰尔，1781 年），2 卷。 in-8°，作者：Mme de Genlis。 L'an deux mille quatre cent quarante, rêve s'il en fut jamais (伦敦，1775)，L.-S.梅西耶。 Mon bonnet de nuit（纳沙泰尔，1784 年），2 卷。 in-8°，作者：L.-S。梅西耶。

Théâtre de société (Neuchâtel, 1781), 2 vols. in-8°, by Mme de Genlis. L‘an deux mille quatre cent quarante, rêve s’il en fut jamais (Londres, 1775), by L.-S. Mercier. Mon bonnet de nuit (Neuchâtel, 1784), 2 vols. in-8°, by L.-S. Mercier.